A New Leader for North Texas

Volume 8 Issue 9

A New Leader for North Texas

By Kris Polly

Jenna Covington: Future Planning at the North Texas Municipal Water District

Our cover interview this month is with Jenna Covington, the new executive director and general manager of the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD), which provides water, wastewater, and solid waste disposal services to 1.8 million people in a rapidly growing area of Texas north of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Ms. Covington tells us about NTMWD’s current initiatives, including progress on the first new major reservoir in Texas in 30 years, Bois d’Arc Lake.

Sue Mosburg is the executive director of the California-Nevada Section of the American Water Works Association, one of the organization’s 43 constituent sections. She tells us about how the section works to solve water problems for utilities and water organizations in a region that struggles with droughts, water affordability, and wildfires.

Syrinix provides hardware and data and advisory services to municipal utilities to help them monitor their systems and detect and locate leaks. Chief Executive James Dunning tells us about the company’s products and services.

Jonathan Grant of SENTRY tells us about his company’s new bioelectrode sensor for wastewater treatment plants, which is specially designed to thrive in environments with high levels of biofouling.

Healing Waters International is a nongovernmental organization working to bring affordable, sustainable potable water infrastructure to remote areas in underdeveloped communities around the world. CEO Rob Anthony and Director of Field Operations and Lead Engineer Walter Nonemaker tell us about the organization’s important work.

Municipal Water professionals are working to make the future better than the past, whether they are working to enable northern Texas’s economic dynamism; to fight drought in California; or to provide much-needed, lifegiving water to locations in Haiti or Guatemala. I hope you find their stories in this issue of Municipal Water Leader interesting and inspiring.

Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He can be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.