E Honors Significant Environmental Results with 2007 Global Ecomagination Leadership Award
HONOLULU -- At a ceremony held in Honolulu, Hawaii, GE Water & Process Technologies, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), awarded Aqua Engineers and U.S. Army Garrison, Hawaii (USAG-HI) with a 2007 Global ecomagination Leadership Award for an innovative partnership that produced outstanding environmental achievements. Working together, Aqua Engineers and the U.S. Army implemented an advanced wastewater treatment and water reuse facility at the Schofield Barracks that will recycle over one billion gallons of water per year. The project will improve local water quality and will provide a sustainable new source of high quality, recycled water that can be reused for irrigation. GE's Global ecomagination Leadership Award is given to organizations that demonstrate significant environmental and operational improvements, particularly in the areas of energy and water reductions.
"The Aqua Engineers and U.S. Army partnership demonstrated environmental leadership by investing in the Schofield Barracks wastewater treatment facility," said Paul J. Schuler, Western Municipal Growth Leader, GE Water & Process Technologies. "The partnership's efforts have improved efficiency and water quality at the facility, and support Hawaii's goals of optimizing water usage and reducing environmental impacts in the region. We commend the partnership for implementing sustainable solutions that meet the needs of both the facility and the environment. Aqua Engineers' innovative approach to saving water is what ecomagination is all about."
In 2004, Aqua Engineers, Hawaii's leading water and wastewater operations and management company, entered a 50-year agreement with the U.S. Army to own, operate, and upgrade the Schofield Barracks wastewater treatment facility. At the time, the 3.2 million gallons per day (MGD) (12,112 m3/d) facility's treatment processes needed to be upgraded to R-1 quality effluent for reuse while increasing plant capacity to 4.2 MGD ensuring that it could cost-effectively meet ongoing regulatory demands. Aqua Engineers worked with the U.S. Army to upgrade and expand the Schofield Barracks Wastewater facility with environmentally sustainable solutions.
Aqua Engineers, which designs, builds, operates, manages, and owns water and wastewater utilities throughout Hawaii, is an employee-owned company. "We pride ourselves on protecting and preserving our precious water resources," said Eassie Miller, Aqua Engineers President and CEO. "The partnership with the U.S. Army, and Aqua's ownership of the Schofield Barracks wastewater system, has enabled our team to continue to meet our mission of providing excellence in water and wastewater services to meet the needs of our clients and the community."
"We're committed to doing the right thing for the right reason," said Col. Howard J. Killian, commander, USAG-HI. "Everything has value, even wastewater; it's just a matter of figuring out how to use that value. The wastewater treatment facility is just one example of how we're trying to capture that lost value. The Army and the world around us are changing. We can't wait to take action twenty years down the road; we need to anticipate and constantly reevaluate our actions with sustainability as our end goal."
Aqua Engineers upgraded the Schofield Barracks Wastewater facility with GE's ecomagination-certified ZeeWeed Membrane Bioreactor (MBR). The advanced wastewater treatment system combines rugged hollow-fiber, ultrafiltration membranes with biological processes resulting in many benefits such as superior treated effluent quality, a compact environmental footprint, reduced chemical consumption and manpower requirements and helps the site conserve and manage its water resources in an environmentally sound manner. GE's ZeeWeed MBR also helps the partnership recycle wastewater to the high-quality standards that are required to support the military base's irrigation needs, which dramatically reduces its demand on Hawaii's limited potable water supplies.
Today, more than one billion people do not have access to safe potable water and by 2025, that number is estimated to grow to about 5.5 billion people worldwide. GE works with corporations, like Aqua Engineers, to address growing water scarcity and water quality issues.
GE also leverages its expanding portfolio of ecomagination certified water treatment products to provide customers with safe drinking water; high-quality industrial water; superior wastewater effluent; public health protection; and wastewater technologies that capture value for customers. "Working with pioneering companies like, Aqua Engineers and leveraging our expanding ecomagination portfolio, over 21 billion gallons of wastewater is captured and reused each year. This helps conserve the world's water resources, as well as, remove harmful emissions from entering our environment," said Schuler.
For more information on the GE ecomagination Leadership Award and GE ecomagination technology, please visitwww.gewater.com.
About GE Water & Process Technologies
GE Water & Process Technologies, a unit of General Electric Company, is solving some of the world's most pressing water challenges by providing industrial, agricultural, potable water, and wastewater solutions that lessen the overall dependence on our world's fresh water sources. Technologies to accomplish this include: advanced membrane-based separation solutions, specialty chemicals for water and process applications, thermal separation equipment, mobile water and advanced instrumentation and controls. As the global leader in membrane technology, seawater desalination projects, and water reuse, GE delivers water sustainability solutions through a variety of delivery models, including Build-Own-Operate and partnerships involving structured financing. GE delivers value to customers by improving performance and product quality, reducing operating costs and extending equipment life. For more information on GE Water & Process Technologies, visit www.gewater.com.
Aqua Engineers Boiler Plate
Dedicated to designing and operating efficient water and wastewater systems throughout Hawaii, Aqua Engineerswww.aquaengineers.com continues to expand its services and employ the latest technology to meet community needs. Aqua Engineers was founded in 1981 to meet a need for trained operators for privately-owned wastewater treatment plants on Kauai.The company now operates and maintains 30 wastewater systems and more than 100 pumping stations and eight water stations throughout Hawaii. With its subsidiary companies (Kauai Precast, LLC, which specializes in precast concrete products; A-Vac, LLC, which handles sewer and storm system maintenance; and Briant Construction, Inc., a mechanical contracting company) Aqua Engineers has nearly 100 employees specializing in engineering, construction, operations, maintenance, and management of water and wastewater systems.
About U.S. Army Garrison, Hawaii
True to its motto "Malama na Koa," which means "Support the Soldier," the USAG-HI provides base operations support to all Army activities in Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa. This support encompasses more than 88,000 military and civilian personnel, numerous permanent installations, and many other facilities, such as training and maneuver areas and live fire ranges. The garrison also provides host support to 94 Department of Army, Department of Defense, and other government agencies that are either tenants of, supported by, or located on the installation. Families are also an important component of the garrison; the garrison commander is responsible for more than 8,081 privatized military family housing units on Oahu. As part of its mission, USAG-HI also administers a wide range of family support and morale, welfare and recreational facilities. For more information on USAG-HI, visit
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