Brown Bag Webinar: Community Service and Environmental Justice as an Essential Best Practice for Clean Water Utilities of the Future

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Speaker(s)

Andrew Kricun
Managing Director, Moonshot Missions and Senior Fellow, US Water Alliance

On Thursday, March 11, Andrew Kricun, Managing Director with Moonshot Missions and former Executive Director and Chief Engineer at the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) in New Jersey, presented “Community Service and Environmental Justice as an Essential Best Practice for Clean Water Utilities of the Future” for a WRRC Brown Bag webinar. The Utility of the Future Today Recognition Program honors water entities that implement environmental projects to benefit the community. In Arizona, five municipalities and water utilities were recognized: Tucson Water, the City of Phoenix, Scottsdale Water, Pima County Regional Wastewater Reclamation Department, and Flagstaff Water Services. After providing an overview of what it means to be a Clean Water Utility of the Future, Kricun described the case of Camden, New Jersey as an example of a collaborative environmental justice and conservation-focused initiative that saw meaningful successes. Under his management, Kricun pushed for much-needed odor control measures and for the transformation of an abandoned gas station and other contaminated sites into rain gardens. The CCMUA also joined a coalition of institutions to finance a riverfront restoration project that established a park for residents to enjoy. Kricun ended his presentation with the striking statistic that Camden was able to engage in a wide range of conservation activities including restoration projects and transition the wastewater treatment facility to run on green energy, all while reducing their utility rates by 40% when factoring for inflation over a 24-year period.

Andrew Kricun is a managing director with Moonshot Missions, a senior fellow with the US Water Alliance and a senior advisor with the Water Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He also serves on the New Jersey Environmental Justice Advisory Council. He graduated with honors from Princeton University with a degree in chemical engineering, and he has over 35 years of wastewater and biosolids management experience. 

 


Attendees will be able to ask questions using the Zoom chat function.
To request an alternate format of this webinar for disability-related access, please contact us at wrrc@email.arizona.edu