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CCMWA's Wyckoff water treatment plant.
Outgoing General Manager Glenn Page on the Award-Winning Cobb County–Marietta Water Authority
T
he Cobb County–Marietta Water Authority (CCMWA) provides wholesale water to cities, counties, and water authorities across a five-county region in northwestern metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. It recently won the Gold Award for Exceptional Utility Performance from the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA). In this interview, outgoing General Manager Glenn Page talks with Municipal Water Leader about how CCMWA delivers efficient water supply, maintains infrastructure, and meets water quality challenges. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Glenn Page: I have a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Clemson University and a master’s in environmental engineering from Georgia Tech. After designing pipelines for CCMWA as a consulting engineer, I joined the staff 34 years ago as a project engineer. I was named assistant general manager in late 2001, when we had to address changes in utility management to respond to the events of 9/11. I was appointed general manager in late 2007, following the retirement of my predecessor. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about CCMWA.
18 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | February 2022
Municipal Water Leader: Does CCMWA partner with other regional water and wastewater entities in the area? Glenn Page: CCMWA is located within the footprint of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District. The district encompasses 15 counties and 95 cities that are required by state law to coordinate water supply, water municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CCMWA.
Glenn Page: We are a water wholesaler and provide treated drinking water to approximately 900,000 people through 10 wholesale customers across a five-county region, including cities, counties, other water authorities, and a defense contractor. We supply all the water to Cobb County, which is a primarily urban metropolitan area just northwest of Atlanta. Our mission is to provide sustainable and reliable
drinking water that supports public health, public safety, and the economic vitality of our region. The word sustainable is key for us. We don’t just define that from an environmental perspective. We plan decades into the future. That planning includes financial planning and fiscal policies that are designed to help us remain financially viable well into the future. This allows us to continue to execute our mission year after year. Since we are an authority, our board is able to take a business approach rather than a political approach. This allows us to do long-term planning; we’re not just planning from election cycle to election cycle. We have 116 employees. For a water authority that has over 170 million gallons per day in production capacity, we are a lean organization. We have held a triple triple‑A bond rating since 2002. We have a low debt ratio and strong financials, and we’re currently in a rehabilitation, or rebuilding, phase in our infrastructure cycle. Part of our financial strategy is to pay for our depreciation up front so that we have cash available for replacement projects. We would plan to borrow for a project to meet a growth need or to meet a new regulatory requirement, but currently, we’re paying for our entire capital improvement plan with cash. Our capital improvement plan requires expenditures of about $50–$70 million per year.
