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Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD) has recently earned a 2019 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence award from the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA). AMWA is an organization of the largest publicly owned water utilities in the U.S. CVWD is one of only two agencies across the U.S. to earn this honor this year.
“This prestigious award clearly reflects the District’s commitment to responsible management of the water supply, to providing reliable services and delivering high-quality drinking water,” said Jim Barrett, CVWD general manager. “It showcases the hard work and innovative thinking of our employees.”
Panels of peer judges evaluate the award applicants. Diane VanDe Hei, AMWA chief executive officer, indicated that in receiving the Platinum Award CVWD has made remarkable efforts to compete in a highly challenging and constantly changing environment.
Criteria for the 2019 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence honor are based on AMWA’s nationally recognized Ten Attributes of Effective Utility Management. Those attributes include: product quality, employee and leadership development, financial viability, operational resiliency, water resource adequacy, customer satisfaction, operational optimization, infrastructure stability, community sustainability and stakeholder understanding and support.
AMWA judges listed the following outstanding features of CVWD’s application:
- The utility’s infrastructure reliability exceeds industry standards through an aggressive preventative maintenance program.
- Financial viability and security remain exceptional through prudent rate setting, consideration of water affordability, and maintenance of capital assets.
- Water resource sustainability is carefully managed through a diverse water supply portfolio and water supply projects.
The awards were presented on Oct. 21 in ceremonies at AMWA’s 2019 Executive Management Conference in Newport, R.I. AMWA is the voice of metropolitan water systems on federal water policy issues, and its programs foster sustainable, innovative utility management.
The AMWA membership serves more than 156 million people from Alaska to Puerto Rico. The association was formed in 1981 by a group of general managers of metropolitan water systems who wanted to ensure that the issues of large publicly owned water suppliers would be represented in Washington, D.C. Member representatives to AMWA are the general managers and CEOs of these large water systems.
