FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 1, 2008

KUB RECEIVES FIVE AWARDS AT 2008 WATER PROFESSIONALS CONFERENCE

KUB received several awards at the Kentucky/Tennessee Water Professionals Conference held at the Knoxville Convention Center July 20–23, 2008. One award was for its PACE 10 program to reduce sewer overflows, and four awards were for excellent waste-water treatment plant operations.

KUB’s PACE 10 program won the Kentucky-Tennessee Water Environment Association (WEA) Outstanding Overflow Abatement Award. The WEA presented the award for efforts to improve the quality of waterways by controlling wet weather sewer overflows from the wastewater collection system.

“KUB has taken a holistic approach with PACE 10,” said Jason Brooks, KUB Manager of Collection System Improvement, “and it has helped us achieve a significant reduction in overflows. PACE 10 includes a mix of pipe rehabilitation, pipe replacement, and wet weather storage tanks. It also emphasizes ongoing Management, Operations, and Maintenance (MOM) programs.”

KUB has built four tanks for a total of 22 million gallons of wet weather wastewater storage under PACE 10. The utility has also rehabilitated approximately 90 miles of collection system pipe.

KUB also received Operational Excellence Awards from the WEA for all four of its wastewater treatment plants: Kuwahee, Loves Creek, Fourth Creek, and Eastbridge. WEA presents the awards to facilities that had no more than one permit violation during the previous calendar year. With the exception of one violation at the Fourth Creek facility, KUB’s plants had a perfect compliance record in 2007

“Wastewater treatment plants face increasingly strict regulations,” said Ted Tyree, manager of Plants. “We are very proud of our operational personnel’s continued record of successfully meeting the treatment challenge.”

The Kentucky-Tennessee section of the American Water Works Association and the Water Environment Association sponsored the conference. More than 950 water and wastewater professionals, contractors, and vendors attended the conference.

KUB, a municipal utility serving Knox and parts of seven adjacent counties, provides reliable electric, gas, water, and wastewater services to more than 430,000 customers.

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