CW2020 Employee Newsletter Vol. 4, No. 2
The City of Columbia was recently honored by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists® (AAEES) and the American Council of Engineering Companies of South Carolina (ACEC-SC) for its Clean Water 2020 (CW2020) Program. The awards highlight the significant improvements the City has made to the operations and maintenance of its wastewater collection and treatment systems.
During AAEES’ Annual Awards and Technical Conference in Washington, DC in April, Columbia was awarded the national Excellence in Environmental Engineering and Science Award™ in Operations and Management for Consent Decree Compliance and Infrastructure Improvement and Program Management. Earlier this year, CW2020 received an Engineering Excellence Award in the Special Projects category at the American Council of Engineering Companies of South Carolina’s (ACEC-SC) annual Engineering Excellence Awards Gala. Each year, the ACEC-SC Engineering Excellence Awards recognizes that year’s most outstanding engineering accomplishments in 12 categories ranging from research and consulting engineering services to industrial and manufacturing processes and facilities.
The City, assisted by its program manager CDM Smith, developed the CW2020 Program, a multi-year program developed for the wastewater system, in response to the consent decree issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The program’s focus is to improve water quality and protect the safety and health of residents by focusing on wastewater system assessment, infrastructure renewal and upgrades, and operational improvements. The City’s entire system, which includes 67,000 service connections, 28,000 manholes and 56 pump stations, is being assessed as part of the program. CW2020’s objectives are to reduce sanitary sewer overflows and enhance existing infrastructure by appropriately funding wastewater efforts, rehabilitating the system, and improving operations and maintenance (O&M) systems. Improvements will bring the City’s O&M efforts in line with top utilities in the Southeast.