{"id":15677,"date":"2025-07-01T11:26:35","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T10:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isleutilities.com\/?p=15677"},"modified":"2025-07-07T18:35:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T17:35:05","slug":"second-annual-us-national-tag-member-meetup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.isleutilities.com\/pt\/second-annual-us-national-tag-member-meetup\/","title":{"rendered":"US National TAG Member Meetup Highlights Innovation in Water Sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

In June, ahead of ACE25, the Isle US Team hosted its second annual US National TAG Member Meetup, bringing together TAG Members from across the country. The event was co-hosted by Denver Water and Colorado State University’s (CSU) Spur Campus, home to Denver Water’s state-of-the-art Water Quality Lab.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Meetup featured the announcement of the 2025 Trailblazer Award Winners, utility-led presentations on operationalizing innovation, focused peer-to-peer utility conversations, and a tour of the CSU Spur Hydro Campus’ Water Technology Acceleration Platform (Water TAP) innovation space.<\/span><\/p>\n

2025 Trailblazer Award Winners<\/b><\/h4>\n

The Trailblazer Awards recognize utilities and individuals pushing the boundaries of innovation in the water sector, demonstrating that collaboration and forward-thinking leadership are essential to addressing today’s water infrastructure challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n

The recipients of the 2025 Trailblazer Awards are are listed below.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"2025<\/b><\/h4>\n

Diamond Award: <\/b>Janelle Boelter, Las Vegas Valley Water District<\/a><\/p>\n

Janelle Boelter, Director of Infrastructure Management at Las Vegas Valley Water District, received the Diamond Award, which honors exceptional women and BIPOC individuals who have demonstrated outstanding achievements and leadership within the water sector. Boelter was recognized for her pioneering work introducing new solutions and driving culture change at her organization, consistently demonstrating forward-thinking leadership that creates bright futures for both her organization and the broader water sector community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Innovator of the Year: <\/b>Gilbert Public Works<\/a><\/p>\n

Gilbert Public Works earned the Innovator of the Year Award for setting the bar for innovation in the water sector. Over the past nine years, Gilbert has consistently engaged, piloted, and deployed new TAG technologies, including 120 Water, RodRadar, and BIOBOX. They were among the first utilities in the US to pilot BIOBOX, a biological denitrification solution, to address severe nitrate contamination affecting Arizona’s groundwater in an energy-efficient, sustainable way and opened the pilot to regional stakeholders to gain insights from the installation.<\/span><\/p>\n

One Team, One Dream (Utility Category): <\/b>Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority (CCMWA)<\/a><\/p>\n

Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority was recognized for their commitment to collaboration and peer support. As a TAG Member for over six years, CCMWA has distinguished itself through generous knowledge sharing across water quality, energy management, AI, and data topics, helping other utilities navigate innovation with greater confidence.<\/span><\/p>\n

One Team, One Dream (Individual Category):<\/b> Jacob Covarrubias, San Antonio Water System<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jacob Covarrubias, Director of Continuous Improvement and Innovation at San Antonio Water System, received recognition for his collaborative leadership. Covarrubias consistently ensures the right stakeholders are at the table and opens doors for collaboration opportunities, reflecting his understanding that innovation happens through partnership, not isolation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maverick Award: <\/b>\u00c1gua da WSSC<\/a><\/p>\n

WSSC Water earned the Maverick Award for embodying a culture of innovation where innovation is a “must have,” not a “nice to have.” WSSC Water exemplifies the maverick spirit through their dedicated internal innovation team that takes ideas from concept to reality, prototyping in-house solutions and building them into full-scale implementations while regularly piloting new TAG technologies.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Water TAP Lab Tour<\/b><\/h4>\n

During the Meetup, Members toured CSU Spur’s Hydro Water TAP lab. The Hydro Water TAP lab is the first facility of its kind to validate new technologies focused on water reuse and alternative water sources, studying the best ways to clean and effectively reuse water. Additionally, Water TAP provides research space intended to remove barriers for new inventors, researchers, and growing companies to commercialize new water treatment technology and prepare it for the marketplace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, the Water TAP lab is studying six types of water sources: stormwater, graywater, roof runoff, wastewater, river water, and industrial water delivered via truck from industrial or agricultural sites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Utility Insights<\/b><\/h4>\n

The theme of this year’s Member Meetup was how to operationalize innovation and turn promising ideas into reality. Two utilities presented and shared updates on their internal processes for instilling a culture of innovation.<\/span><\/p>\n

DC Water shared their approaches for developing a system and framework within the organization to build a robust central innovation space. Their goals include preventing duplicated efforts and underutilized pilots, creating visibility and aligning innovation with organizational risk and goals, and turning the “unfamiliar” into structured problem solving.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gilbert Public Works noted that aging infrastructure, resource constraints, and slowing growth have all been factors in their efforts to pilot technologies and make innovation “standard practice.” <\/span>Some of the pilots they’ve introduced to meet this goal included a 14-month pilot as part of Gilbert’s North Water Treatment Plant (NWTP) facility upgrades to optimize Total Organic Carbon (TOC) removal and reduce TTHM formation potential. They used Rapid Small-Scale Column Tests (RSSCTs) to examine performance of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) and potential benefits of ozone application, finding that careful data collection and analysis can bring confidence to full-scale planning efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, to address severe nitrate contamination impacting Arizona’s groundwater, they examined several nitrate treatment options including traditional options like reverse osmosis (RO) and Ion Exchange (IX) before selecting a pilot with BIOBOX’s biological denitrification solution, which produces minimal waste and is energy-efficient.<\/span><\/p>\n