Water Research Foundation Announces the Winners of Its 2017 Outstanding Subscriber Awards and the Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award

Winners Were Honored for Contributions to the Water Community at ACE17

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Water
Research Foundation (WRF) announced today that it has awarded the
2017 Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award to Mr. Stuart Krasner
from Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two
Outstanding Subscriber Awards for Applied Research to the City of
Calgary and Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD). Mr. Krasner and both
Outstanding Subscriber Award recipients were honored during WRF’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 WRF-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. WRF’s Outstanding Subscriber Award for Applied
Research honors subscribing utilities that have successfully applied WRF
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, Mr. Krasner’s research has focused on disinfection
by-product (DBP) research, both in terms of the chemistry of formation
as well as developing a better understanding of the impacts of DBPs 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, Mr. Krasner has been actively involved with WRF,
serving as the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on more than 22
different research projects.

“Winning this award is a great honor. I worked with Pankaj so I
hope to do justice to his name,” said Krasner. “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 WRF, since
1987 Calgary has developed and participated in a series of WRF research
projects that look at risk governance and enterprise risk management.
Calgary is a global leader in the water sector and has worked with WRF
to bring international utilities together to sponsor research.

“It is absolutely fantastic to win this award. This is recognition that
we’ve been doing the right thing over the last 30 years,” said Rob
Pritchard, General Manager at the City of Calgary. “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.”

TRWD 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, prompted by
their desire to improve the reliability of a new pipeline they are
building. Tarrant has already saved about $20 million compared with the
estimated cost of construction, and much of these savings can be traced
to the large-diameter pipe design research they have championed.

“TRWD has always been an organization looking for a better path. 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,” said David Marshall,
Engineering Services Director at Tarrant Regional Water District.

Award nominations are accepted from WRF’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 WRF’s annual awards and past award winners,
please visit www.WaterRF.org/awards

Water Research Foundation (WRF) is a non-profit research
cooperative that advances the science of water to protect public health
and the environment. Governed by utilities, WRF delivers scientifically
sound research solutions and knowledge to serve our subscribers and
stakeholders in all areas of drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, and
reuse. WRF has funded and managed more than 1,500 research studies from
asset management to treatment, utility finance to resource management,
conveyance systems to water quality.

Contacts

Water Research Foundation
Adam Lang, 303-347-6259
[email protected]