Central San Inducted Into Leading Utilities Of The World Network

MARTINEZ, CA - From Central Contra Costa Sanitary District: Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (Central San) is pleased to announce that on Nov. 29, 2017, the organization was inducted into the Leading Utilities of the World (LUOW), a network of 22 of the world's most forward-thinking water and wastewater utilities. LUOW is an initiative of the Global Water Leaders Group, a non-profit organization aiming to create a better story for water worldwide and supported by foundation sponsor CH2M.

The purpose of LUOW is to create a global network of the world’s most successful and innovative water and wastewater utilities to help drive performance across the sector by recognizing achievement, providing a network for sharing ideas, and inspiring others to improve. Its members represent the gold standard of utility innovation and performance throughout the developed world’s water sector.

LUOW members must be nominated by other gold-standard utilities and complete a rigorous interview and selection process. Each nominated utility presents three innovation successes, which are evaluated by the LUOW Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is led by Howard Neukrug, Senior Advisor to the Global Water Leaders Group and former CEO of the Philadelphia Water Department. The Board also includes representatives from DC Water (USA), Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (USA), PUB Singapore, Water Corporation (Western Australia), Waternet (The Netherlands) and the Waterworks Bureau of Kitakyushu (Japan).

Central San was recognized for outstanding achievements in stakeholder engagement, overall utility productivity, environmental impact and its vision for the future. Central San is one of the leaders in customer outreach and stakeholder engagement, providing large-scale customer educational events, tours, environmental publications, student educational programs and even a wastewater academy for the public. They are an innovation leader through providing a reliability-centered maintenance program, using technology to optimize the lifecycle of assets, and employing effective preventive maintenance to extend the life of equipment and systems reducing costs for customers. Central San has positioned itself as an environmental leader in the community by leading and partnering on projects that would use recycle water to augment local water supplies, turn wastewater solids into biofuel, and implement the newest technologies of wastewater cleaning.

The five new member utilities approved and accepted into the network by the LUOW Advisory Board were:

• Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, USA
• Central Contra Costa Sanitary District, USA
• Environmental Services, The Regional Municipality of York, Canada
• San Antonio Water System, USA
• Watercare Services Limited, New Zealand

The new member organizations where presented with the Golden Tap trophy to commemorate the membership during a special gala dinner at the American Water Summit hosted by Global Water Intelligence.

“Central San is honored to be recognized along with some of the largest and most advanced utilities in the world. We are committed to our work in customer outreach and our focus on innovation and efficiency in order to provide exceptional service for our customers while fulfilling our mission to protect public health and the environment” said General Manager Roger S. Bailey.

To become a utility member of the Leading Utilities of the World, a utility needs to demonstrate outstanding innovation in at least three areas of utility management and have an ambition to continue to drive performance in the years to come.

These areas are designed to apply comprehensively to water utilities, specifically in economically developed countries, and enable utilities to understand the commonalities of challenges and solutions that are relevant across different local, social, political, environmental, and regulatory frameworks. LUOW Members benefit from this recognition, and from the ongoing interaction in the LUOW online community, face-to-face meetings, and in-depth White Papers produced by the Global Water Leaders Group.

Photo courtesy of Central Contra Costa Sanitary District