CMAA sponsors inaugural Water Summit

MCLEAN, VA.—Catherine Gerali, district manager of the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District in greater Denver, Colo., is overseeing the planning and construction of as much as $2 billion in capital improvements, and will describe the District’s strategy in her keynote presentation to the Construction Management Association of America’s (CMAA) first Water Summit in July.

The Summit will be held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas on July 19-20. Complete information is available at www.cmaanet.org/water-summit. The program will explore the challenges of maintaining, restoring, and expanding water and wastewater infrastructure nationwide.

Gerali’s agency serves about 1.6 million people and operates the largest wastewater treatment facility in the Rocky Mountain West. It is now looking toward a major increase in demand as well as a need to replace or refurbish aging infrastructure.

Gerali’s keynote will highlight a 16-session program that includes an opening panel and closing "town hall" discussion forum. In between, 15 breakout sessions will focus on practical project experiences. Presenters will include representatives of the project owners, along with managers from prominent construction management/project management firms including URS, Parsons, Arcadis, Jacobs, Worley Parsons, CH2M Hill, PBS&J, Black & Veach, Balfour Beatty, HDR, and others.

Breakout session topics include the following:

• San Francisco PUC Water System Improvement Program—Construction management approach and practices;
• Impacts of population growth on water/wastewater infrastructure: Analysis and trends;
• City of Atlanta Sewer Separation Construction Program;
• Adapting PPPs used in the United Kingdom for U.S. water industry projects;
• Construction management leadership in alternative project delivery for municipal infrastructure projects;
• National regulatory developments and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;
• Collaboration and communication—Case examples of water/wastewater project successes; and
• Palm Beach County, Fla., Wakadahatchee Wetlands—Experiences and challenges of water reclamation using constructed wetlands.