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The Water Tower: A Water Innovation Center for the Southeastern United States
A digital rendering of The Water Tower headquarters building, designed by Gresham Smith and being constructed by Reeves Young.
T
he Water Tower is a new water innovation center headquartered in Buford, Georgia. Its campus, expected to be completed in 2022, will include laboratories, a field training center, and access to real effluent and reuse water for research purposes. However, The Water Tower is already moving forward with programming in four key areas: applied research, technology innovation, community engagement, and workforce development. In this interview, Kristan VandenHeuvel, The Water Tower’s strategic director of research and engagement, tells Municipal Water Leader about the center’s vision of being a water hub for the entire Southeast and how it is already making that a reality. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
28 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | October 2020
Municipal Water Leader: Would you give us an overview of the Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources, its current services, and how the idea of The Water Tower evolved? Kristan VandenHeuvel: Gwinnett County and its Department of Water Resources have always had the reputation of being progressive and forward thinking. The water department’s F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center is a world-renowned wastewater treatment and resource recovery facility. People from all over the world come to visit and learn about its innovative approaches. There are also four other plants that are devoted to a mixture of water and wastewater treatment and that incorporate thousands of miles of pipe and numerous pump stations. municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WATER TOWER.
Kristan VandenHeuvel: I am fairly new to the Buford, Georgia, area. My career brought me here in September 2019, when I accepted the position of strategic director of research and engagement for The Water Tower. Prior to that, I had been working at the Water Research Foundation (WRF) in Alexandria, Virginia, where I focused on water reuse and water resource management. The work was heavily oriented to agricultural water use, and I also participated in outreach and engagement for the water industry. Through
that, I was able to develop my skills in research planning and project management. Interestingly, The Water Tower’s current CEO, Melissa Meeker, was CEO of WRF at the time I was working there. Melissa was recruited by the Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources with the goal of developing the new Water Tower innovation center in Buford. She invited me to come on board to manage the research and community engagement programs.
