ACWA Awards $22,000 to Five Undergraduate Students in Water-Related Fields of Study

ACWA’s (the Association of California Water Agencies) 2019 Spring Conference and Exhibition in Monterey featured networking, education and the awarding of scholarships to five undergraduate students enrolled at California public universities who are pursuing degrees in water-related fields of study. More than 1,500 local officials and water professionals were on-hand for the distribution of $22,000 to these worthy students.

“For many years ACWA and its partners have been proud to support and promote California’s next generation of water leaders through these scholarship programs,” said ACWA President Brent Hastey. “We congratulate this year’s group of undergraduate scholarship recipients and look forward to following their educational and career achievements in the years ahead.”

The students and the 2019-20 scholarship programs for which they were selected and the school they attending are:

ACWA Scholarship ($3,500 each)

• Nick Caton, an Environmental Science student at UCLA
• Fernanda Rocha, a Civil Engineering student at UC Irvine

Clair A. Hill Scholarship ($5,000)

• Chloe Fowler, an Agricultural Communications student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Ted and Nancy Way Scholarship for the Next Generation of Water Leaders ($5,000 each)

• Evangelina Chavez, an Environmental Studies student at CSU Sacramento
• Adam Taylor, an Ecosystem Management and Forestry student at UC Berkeley

Also during ACWA’s Spring Conference was the presentation of 2019 Clair A. Hill Water Agency Award for Excellence to the Santa Margarita Water District (SMWD) for its Lake Mission Viejo Advanced Treated Water Facility project. SMWD formed a unique public-private partnership to fast-track, finance and build an Advanced Treated Water Facility in just eight months.

Upon the completion of the new facility Lake Mission Viejo has become the first swimming and recreational lake in California to use recycled water instead of drinking water for lake refill. Switching to Advanced Treated Water for the lake’s refill ended a nearly 40-year practice of using up to 350 acre-feet of potable water each year to maintain water levels in the 125-acre Orange County lake. The new process saves 114 million gallons of water per year.

“The Lake Mission Viejo Advanced Treated Water Facility is a wonderful example of a local water agency collaborating with private and public partners to build an innovative water treatment and supply project that provides multiple regional benefits,” said ACWA President Brent Hastey.

ACWA’s Clair A. Hill Water Agency Award for Excellence is an annual award program that recognizes outstanding achievements by public water agencies. The winning agency has the honor of awarding a $5,000 scholarship to a deserving student in the name of Clair A. Hill, founder of the consulting engineering firm CH2M, now Jacobs.