Ironhouse Sanitary District is honored to have received four awards at the San Francisco Bay Section of the California Water Environment Association’s (CWEA) awards banquet on Friday, Jan. 20. The awards are for “Plant of the Year”-Small Facility, “Collection System of the Year”-Small Facility, “Newsletter of the Year” and the “Community Engagement and Outreach: Project of the Year”.

CWEA is a professional trade organization that works to enhance the education and effectiveness of California's wastewater professionals through training and certification,

dissemination of technical information and promotion of sound policies to benefit society through protection and enhancement of the water environment.

Nearly all of Ironhouse employees are members of CWEA and have received certification and training from CWEA sponsored programs.

There are over 20 categories for CWEA awards. According to the state CWEA website each one the awards have been designed to honor exceptional CWEA members and California wastewater professionals, facilities and agencies. The program seeks to recognize outstanding achievements within the wastewater field, improve the professional status of all personnel working in the wastewater industry and related fields and stimulate public awareness of the importance of wastewater treatment to public health and the water environment.

The awards divide “Plant of the Year” and “Collection System of the Year” into three categories. Ironhouse Sanitary District fits into the small category which includes less than five million gallons per day (mgd) for the “Plant of the Year” award and less than 249 miles of sewer pipe for the “Collection System of the Year” award.  The “Community Engagement and Outreach: Project of the Year” award has two categories for large and small budgets of less than or more than $20,000 respectively. Ironhouse won for a project less than $20,000.

The “Community Engagement and Outreach: Project of the Year” award was given for a middle school tour Ironhouse gave in March of 2016 where 700 sixth-grade students, teachers and chaperones completed tours of the Water Recycling Facility in two days. This tour included both Delta Vista and O’Hara Park middle school students as part of the Oakley Education Science Week program.

Those that have been awarded at the regional level will be submitted to CWEA at the state level awards. The state winners will be announced in April at the CWEA annual conference.