Nevada's Second-Largest County Switches to MWH

17 November 2009, 7:07pm

Broomfield, Colorado, USA, November 17, 2009 — MWH Soft, a leading global provider of environmental and water resources applications software, today announced that Washoe County, Nevada, has adopted the company’s industry-leading InfoWater Executive and InfoSewer Pro Suite software as its standard water and sewer network modeling, design, and management solution. The software will serve as the foundation for continued development of a comprehensive GIS-centric solution for the County’s complex drinking water and sanitary sewer systems.

The selection underscores the value of the company’s geocentric hydraulic infrastructure modeling and design solutions - tools that have made MWH Soft a worldwide market leader. Among the reasons cited for Washoe County’s decision were the software’s many powerful tools, comprehensive functionality, speed, ease of use, flexibility, and seamless ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA) integration.

Washoe County is the only entity in the State of Nevada to deliver a critical array of integrated water resource services, including water supply, wastewater treatment, effluent reuse, flood management and early warning, groundwater remediation and water resource planning. Combining these functions in one entity allows wise management of the region’s scarce water resources for the benefit of utility customers, the environment and the area’s quality of life.

The Washoe County system manages and operates 18 water systems with 506 miles (814 km) of mains covering 48 square miles (124 km2); 443 miles of sewer mains covering 22 square miles (57 km2); and wastewater treatment, conveyance and reclamation facilities. One of the facilities it operates is the South Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility. The number of reclaimed water accounts has grown steadily. In 2007, a total of 229 customer accounts used approximately 2,540 acre-feet (3.1 million m3) of reclaimed water instead of scarce potable water.

“MWH Soft has provided us with powerful software and top-notch service,” said Joe Stowell, Licensed Engineer for Washoe County. “We are standardizing on MWH Soft engineering GIS-centric technology because the products are very easy to learn and use, integrate seamlessly with our ArcGIS platform, and have the power to model and analyze extremely large and complex water and wastewater networks quickly and reliably. These tools make master planning fast, easy, cost-effective, and accurate. That gives us more power to improve the operation, performance and integrity of our existing systems and plan the new facilities we need to accommodate growth.”

With direct support to geodatabases, the innovative network modeling and design technology of the MWH Soft geospatial water and sewer software family addresses every facet of utility infrastructure management, operation, and protection - delivering the highest rate of return in the industry. Drawing on the most advanced hydraulic and water quality simulation and geospatial analysis technologies, the software effortlessly reads GIS datasets, corrects network topology problems and data flaws, extracts pertinent modeling information, and reliably constructs credible network models with astounding speed.

The County also opted to extend the power of InfoWater by purchasing the Executive Suite’s add-on modules. These extras include valve criticality modeling, pump scheduling optimization, automated demand allocation, and on-demand contaminant and main break customer notifications. They also provide automated hydraulic design, Genetic Algorithm-based model calibration, pressure zone management, leak detection modeling, sensor location management, and Google Earth-based model results viewing. The InfoSewer Pro Suite adds the sophisticated rainfall runoff modeling, automated load allocation, hydrogen sulfide detection and corrosion prediction.

“We continue to invest in best-of-breed GIS-centric modeling and design solutions that are easy to implement and use, because they give our customers a significant business edge,” said J. Erick Heath, P.E., MWH Soft Vice President--Director of Americas Operations. “Our products deliver consistent, high quality engineering GIS modeling data, enhanced efficiency and reliable, cost-effective project plans. These advantages lead to measurable improvements in productivity, system performance, return on investment, and customer satisfaction. Washoe County is a superb example of how progressive, leading utilities are using these highly effective tools to optimize short- and long-term capital planning and ensure infrastructure sustainability.”

MWH Soft

Geo: International