American Water Launches Innovative Partnership With Corona Environmental Consulting To Provide Real-Time Monitoring Of Water Systems

American Water, the nation’s largest publicly traded water and wastewater utility company, announced recently that it has formed a partnership with Corona Environmental Consulting to develop a cloud-based geographic information system software platform known as WaterSuite. This partnership is a result of American Water's Innovation Development Process, which drives innovation and supports the development of new products.

West Virginia American Water partnered with Corona to pioneer the development of the WaterSuite tool. By integrating real-time data from various sources, WaterSuite creates a context for effective and efficient management of water resources and enables prompt data-driven decision making. Its array of features allows utilities to visualize potential sources of contamination within a watershed, import and share water quality measurements and emergency monitoring plans, track water quality and movement of chemicals in the event of an unplanned release, and search for possible contaminants by characteristic, all within a platform that is highly secure, interactive, and easily customized.

“In contrast to paper source water assessment reports, WaterSuite is a ‘living’ source water assessment and a key tool for use in source water protection and event response," said Paul Gagliardo, Manager, Innovation Development. “As a leader in researching and deploying water industry innovations, American Water is committed to using technologies that help us increase our efficiencies and the value of the water services we provide to our customers.”

 “We’re very excited to be working closely with American Water to ensure that the tools we are creating meet the needs of the water industry to better understand and manage water resources,” said Corona CEO Jeffrey Rosen.  “In each service area across the company’s footprint where WaterSuite is being integrated, American Water personnel will collaborate with Corona to establish requirements and test the system and its functionality for the best possible solution and outcomes.”

The software is also being expanded to capture, integrate and analyze water quality data to identify conditions that may need further investigation. Such tools will allow for the development of more accurate early warning systems to identify potential declines in source water quality.

Corona is the sixth company to become a Certified Innovation Partner of American Water through its Innovation Development Process. Formed in 2009, American Water's Innovation Development Process is an initiative that leverages the company's position and expertise as the nation's largest water and wastewater services provider to develop innovations by performing idea validation tests using the company's large and geographically diverse footprint, ultimately becoming an early adopter of new technologies for industry use. It combines American Water's research and development acumen, technical expertise and infrastructure assets with internal innovations and those of its partners in order to create greater efficiencies in the areas of water reuse, desalination, wastewater operations, and bio-energy.

About Corona Environmental Consulting
Corona is a nationally recognized leader in addressing high profile issues confronting the water community today.  Corona brings together multidisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, statisticians, and IT professionals to solve challenges that water utilities face treating, monitoring, and delivering high quality, safe drinking water.  Corona leverages expertise in software design and development, water system management, the sciences, and engineering to deliver solutions that enable utilities to manage their water systems more effectively.  In collaboration with its partners and clients, Corona has widened its interests to include source water analysis and premise plumbing.  Working within these new domains, Corona addresses water quality problems that are traditionally considered outside the jurisdiction of drinking water providers, yet are important determinants of the quality and safety of water provided to drinking water customers. For more information, visit www.coronaenv.com.

About American Water
Founded in 1886, American Water is the largest publicly traded U.S. water and wastewater utility company. With headquarters in Voorhees, N.J., the company employs approximately 6,800 dedicated professionals who provide drinking water, wastewater and other related services to an estimated 15 million people in 47 states and Ontario, Canada. For more information, visit www.amwater.com.