Trillion Dollar Investment Needed To Bring Current Water Assets Up To Standard

Brian Labelle of GF Piping Systems shares his thoughts on the trends in the water industry.

The following is an excerpt from a Q&A with Water Online Radio. Click on the Radio Player above to hear the full interview.

Water Online Radio: What are some of the current trends you're seeing?

Brian: The demand for clean water is going to increase, and the demand for clean water will increase at a time when infrastructure continues to age.  We need a trillion dollars’ worth of investment in this country over the next twenty years just to bring our current assets up to meet current standards.

That's what we need just to meet current standards, and of course, water quality and safety standards are going to continue to tighten. We're reading things about hexavalent chromium and increasingly tight regulations on what is in our drinking water supply.

There are many other trends to talk about. We'll see a continued utilization of redox and filtration systems, ion exchange, and reverse osmosis. There are disinfection strategies evolving to include more chlorine dioxide, ozone, and UV.

Rates are going to increase, and that's going to put a lot more focus on conservation and loss prevention. To that, we say measure it and it will improve. Those trends lead right into the GF portfolio.

Water Online Radio: Tell us about that portfolio and how it addresses these trends.

Brian: We don't just do pipe and we don't just do fittings or the joining technology. We do all of that, the pipe and the fittings, the method for putting them together, manual and actuated valves that go into those piping systems, plus the sensors and instrumentation…

It's really about complete systems on the piping side, and product performance and simplicity on the sensors, instrumentation and automation side of our business.

Click on the Radio Player above to hear the full interview.