New Staff Member at SW
Jacob Hammack recently joined SW’s project planning team as an Engineering Technician. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has a strong background in modeling, drafting and coding. In addition to playing an integral role in SW’s preliminary project assessments and feasibility studies, Jacob will support our company IT and plant operational oversight needs. Jacob has a love for the outdoors and spent his childhood exploring the many opportunities in nature that Virginia has to offer. He has been interested in sustainable ways of living since high school, wind and solar energy being […]
Water Cops and Battles Over Water
When you think of “water cops,” images of the Coast Guard or State Highway Patrol Water Division may come to mind. In many communities facing drought conditions, an investigator prowling through neighborhoods making note of water restriction violations may come to mind. In Colorado, there is a much different image that likely comes to mind. In Montezuma County, Dave Huhn is the Water Cop, well-versed with the nuances of water law. After consecutive summers of hot and dry weather, farmers are “desperate for water, and more willing to steal it or go to battle over it,” and Huhn is a […]
Accumulating Costs of Hurricane Florence
There are no words to adequately express the breadth of Hurricane Florence’s impact to North Carolina and the accumulating costs. The human cost of the storm is a total of 43 lives in the Carolinas and Virginia.[1] The financial cost of the storm is estimated to be “between $38 billion and $50 billion in damage and economic losses.”[2] The environmental costs include beach erosion, downed trees, chemical spills, storm surge and flooding as well as the “added waste from thousands of dead hogs, millions of dead chickens, millions of gallons of wastewater, and coal ash from Duke’s now-flooded Sutton facility.”[3] […]
UVA Gets a Major Rate Adjustment
In July of this year, the University of Virginia’s water and sewer rates increased and will continue to increase until 2021 when the University will pay full city water and sewer rates instead of the reduced rates they have paid since 1981. The bargain rate was the outcome of the U.Va.-City 1981 Water and Sewer Agreement, which “established that water delivered to the University’s water distribution system instead of directly to a University building would only be paid for with 25 percent of the normal retail rate over the wholesale rate of water.”[1] City of Charlottesville Director of Utilities, Lauren […]
Recycled Water Gets Legal Footing
In recent years as concerns over water shortages have consistently persisted, Californians have often pinned their hopes on higher levels of rain or snowfall to “to fill the reservoirs and replenish the groundwater basins that serve as the water supply for cities and farms.”[1] This reality has increased awareness and conservation efforts throughout the state; however, many have long felt that conservation, alone, cannot adequately address the water scarcity. Water recycling programs have not been an option, though, “due to a lack of state standards on how to permit on-site water reuse systems.”[2] To address the lacking standards, Senator Scott […]