Water Tower Showdown WaterTowerShowdown

On July 8, we co-hosted the inaugural Water Tower Showdown at the Smith Mountain Lake Water Treatment Facility. WVWA collaborated with the VA Section AWWA/VWEA Student Activities Committee, Bedford Water Authority and Lynchburg Water Resources to put on an engineering challenge for middle school students The challenge was to build a model water tower that could effectively hold one gallon of water The towers were judged on Dimensions/Structural Efficiency, Cost and Materials, Design, and Hydraulic Efficiency. 13 teams entered from across the region and three teams walked away with cash prizes! We look forward to hosting this event again next year.

UserConference forGIS

San Diego, CA: the 2023 International Esri User Conference was held July 10-14. Over 15,000 professionals from across the globe attended in-person, and three of those professionals were from our Engineering Department! Erika Hoffman, GIS Manager, expressed excitement for new and easier options for offline maps. She also stated, "We listened to case studies for other medium sized utilities, and I will be contacting them to share some of our experiences and learn some of theirs. New contacts are always helpful and learning how they handle situations similar to ours."