Ave Maria Drinking Water Best In Florida
Residents in Ave Maria, Fla., have the most delicious drinking water in all of Florida.
The Ave Maria Utility Company won the Florida Section of the American Water Works Association's Best Tasting Drinking Water contest April 8. The water will compete for the nationwide title in June. This is the first year Ave Maria has entered the contest.
The water treatment plant was designed, built and is operated by CH2M HILL for the Ave Maria Utility Company and the planned community of Ave Maria. The 1.67 million-gallons-per-day plant uses membrane softening to treat the water drawn from three wells.
Ave Maria's 1-mgd activated sludge wastewater treatment plant, also part of CH2M HILL's DBO, was built for future capacity expansions as the community grows. Wastewater treatment is achieved by using conventional activated sludge followed by tertiary filtration and high-level disinfection. The zero-discharge facility is designed for the beneficial reuse of the plant effluent for irrigation water in the community
As part of the O&M contract, employees perform administrative and financial services and engineering and field services in addition to water and wastewater O&M. Design began in 2005 and the plants came online in late 2006.
The facilities won Design-Build Institute of America's "Project of the Year" in the New York Tri-State Region and a National Merit Award in the category of water and wastewater projects over $15M in 2007.
Ave Maria first won the Region V contest against other water utilities in Collier, Hendry and Lee Counties. Winners from 12 regions competed in the state-wide title held at Tallahassee City Hall as part of the state's Drinking Water Day events April 8. Ave Maria's water will now compete in the national competition held during AWWA's Annual Conference & Exposition June 20-24 in Chicago.
About CH2M HILL
Headquartered in Denver, Colo., employee-owned CH2M HILL is a global leader in consulting, design, design-build, operations and program management for government, civil, industrial and energy clients. With $6.3B in revenue and 25,000 employees, CH2M HILL is an industry-leading program management, construction management and design firm, as ranked by Engineering News-Record (2009). The firm's work is concentrated in the areas of water, transportation, environmental, energy and power, and facilities and infrastructure. The firm has long been recognized as a most-admired company and leading employer. For more information, visit www.ch2mhill.com.
SOURCE: CH2M HILL