Water Research Foundation Announces Award Winners
The Water Research Foundation has awarded the 2017 Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award to Stuart Krasner from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two Outstanding Subscriber Awards for Applied Research to the City of Calgary and Tarrant Regional Water District. Krasner and both Outstanding Subscriber Award recipients were honored during the Water Research Foundation’s Annual Subscriber breakfast at the American Water Works Association’s annual conference, ACE17.
The Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award honors researchers and research teams who have made significant contributions to advancing the science of water through Water Research Foundation-sponsored projects. The award is named after Dr. Pankaj Parekh, a tireless advocate of water research who dedicated over 40 years of his life to ensuring safe drinking water and protecting public health. The Outstanding Subscriber Award for Applied Research honors subscribing utilities that have successfully applied Water Research Foundation research to make notable improvements to their water treatment, delivery, and/or management processes.
“A large part of the Water Research Foundation’s success depends on partnerships with remarkable leaders in the water community, like those we honored today,” said Rob Renner, Chief Executive Officer of the Water Research Foundation. “Mr. Krasner and the professionals at the City of Calgary and TRWD have contributed so much to WRF’s research efforts over many years. We are proud of their work and grateful for their achievements.”
For 40 years, Krasner’s research has focused on disinfection by-product research, both in terms of the chemistry of formation as well as developing a better understanding of the impacts of disinfection by-product on public health. His current research into the occurrence, formation, and control of emerging DBPs will undoubtedly play a role in the shaping of future regulatory development in the United States and abroad. Over the past four decades, Krasner has been actively involved with the Water Research Foundation, serving as the Principal Investigator or Co-PI on more than 22 different research projects.
“Winning this award is a great honor,” said Krasner. “I worked with Pankaj so I hope to do justice to his name. I appreciate the Water Research Foundation for the support they’ve given me, which has allowed me to do this kind of research.”
The City of Calgary provides drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater services to over one million people. A Founding Member of the Water Research Foundation since 1987, Calgary has developed and participated in a series of Water Research Foundation projects that look at risk governance and enterprise risk management. Calgary is a global leader in the water sector and has worked with the Water Research Foundation to bring international utilities together to sponsor research.
“It is absolutely fantastic to win this award,” said Rob Pritchard, General Manager at the City of Calgary. “This is recognition that we’ve been doing the right thing over the last 30 years. We’ve always felt that we were up there amongst our peers in terms of our approach and I think to be recognized in this way is incredible.”
Tarrant Regional Water District owns and operates four reservoirs and has constructed more than 150 miles of pipelines, 27 miles of floodway levees, more than 72 miles of Trinity River Trails, and a 2,000-acre wetland water reuse project designed to increase water supplies for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In the last few years, they have invested $3 million in research focused on improved design of large-diameter buried steel pipelines to improve the reliability of a new pipeline they are building. Due to this research, the water district has already saved about $20 million compared with the estimated cost of construction.
“TRWD has always been an organization looking for a better path,” said David Marshall, Engineering Services Director at Tarrant Regional Water District. “Being recognized for the fact that we take great advantage of working with WRF on our system and operations shows that we’re really supporting our customers by being progressive in what we do.”
Award nominations are accepted from the Water Research Foundation’s Board of Directors, staff, subscribers, researchers, and other water community partners. The Board of Directors’ Awards Committee selects each year’s winners. For additional information about the Water Research Foundation’s annual awards and past award winners, please visit www.WaterRF.org/awards.
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