Eastern Municipal Water District's Compliance System Earns Payback
in 2 Years, Projected Savings $1.3 Million
This article is available in PDF:
For more than 50 years, the Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) has helped support the transformation of a sparsely-populated agricultural area into a thriving Southern California residential community. Managers at California's fifth largest water district work diligently to ensure compliance with state and federal water quality regulations. A key component of its compliance program is ESS Essential Suite® software – specifically the Essential Water™, Essential Compliance Manager™ and Essential Task Manager™ modules.
The Challenge
- Comply with pending requirement mandating electronic data transfer of regulatory information
- Address existing system limitations, including lack of scalability, reporting limitations and lack of a central repository
The Solution
- Essential Water™
- Essential Compliance Manager™
- Essential Task Manager™
The Results
- Savings, efficiencies exceed initial system cost within 2 years
- Generates direct benefits projected at $1.3 million over 7 years
- Central repository that provides efficient data retrieval
- Updated a variety of outdated compliance processes
EMWD's strategic goal is to protect the health and safety of the public while delivering seven key services: water delivery and treatment; supply development and management; wastewater collection and treatment; recycled water sales and delivery; capital improvement and facilities development; service connections to potable water; and billing and collections. Effective information management is imperative to EMWD's ability meet its compliance obligations while operating as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
EMWD initiated a project to study its existing business practices and systems related to water, wastewater and air regulatory and management processes. A careful review of its compliance procedures showed that EMWD's existing processes could not address a host of data management issues including: the pending state requirement for electronic data transfer of verified compliance activity, lack of a central data repository, inadequate system scalability, and insufficient reporting tools to facilitate data analysis.
Among the EMIS project's objectives are:
- Improved ability for staff to manage compliance requirements, including deadline adherence;
- Ability to easily extract historical data;
- Provide alerts to notify managers about data out of limit;
- Ability to manage business systems (SCADA or LIMS)
- Enable use of handheld devices for system interface;
- Improved data validation, quality and security; and
- Ability to enforce data change control and audit changes.
After rigorous evaluation, EMWD's team of executives, managers, staff and outside consultants selected ESS' Essential Suite as the "software of choice." Benefits of the utility's EMIS project include:
- Creation of a central repository that facilitates fast and efficient data retrieval for managers.
- Combined cost savings and efficiencies that covered the initial project investment within two years
- Benefits totaling a projected $1.3 million over 7 years.
Essential Suite's low total cost of ownership is enabling EMWD to save money while driving operational improvements and meeting its compliance challenge.
