Veolia Water, Milwaukee Conduct First Carbon-Water Study

Veolia Water North America, a division of Veolia Environnement (NYSE: VE), and the city of Milwaukee announced what is believed to be the first-ever simultaneous analysis of
water and carbon on a major metropolitan area’s water cycle.

The study takes the balance of
both carbon and water into consideration, and assigns a value to water
based on quality, quantity and resource stress.

The study was possible through support from the City of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Water Council, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) and various water and energy utilities serving the area’s 1.1 million people.

Milwaukee is the only United Nations Global Compact City focused on freshwater management, which requires the city to carry out a variety of water-quality projects that can be emulated by other cities.

Selected key findings include:

• Even in a water-rich environment like Milwaukee, public water conservation has a needed positive impact on water resources and carbon emissions.
• A new project to replace natural gas and electricity demand via landfill gas will significantly reduce both the Carbon Footprint and the Water Impact Index, reinforcing the project’s relevance.
• The Water Impact Index shows that in Milwaukee, the impact of one gallon of a combined sewer overflow (CSO) is 465% higher than one gallon of treated wastewater. It also shows that the Water Impact Index of green solutions envisioned by Milwaukee, such as wetlands development, is approximately 12 times lower than the one from CSOs. MMSD has already been exploring these options and the study results confirm their choice and future plans.
• Additional projects are already scheduled or being investigated between MMSD and Veolia Water to further improve the performance of the system and reduce both the Water Impact Index and carbon footprint.

Veolia Water also unveiled its Water Impact Index, which the company
says is the first indicator enabling a comprehensive assessment of the
impact of human activity on water resources.

The Water Impact
Index expands on existing volume-based water measurement tools by
incorporating multiple factors including consumption, resource stress
and water quality.

The Water Impact Index establishes the impact
of human activity on water resources and provides a methodology for
establishing the positive and negative implications of how water
resources are managed.

Fresh water availability has been predicted to become a major
limitation factor for growth for cities and industries in many locations
around the world, and the need to understand and quantify the impact on
water resources is becoming essential to maintaining their
sustainability and future prosperity.

“The framework that we used
has broad application for public- and private-sector decision makers,
and enables them to take into account a broader set of environmental and
cost factors,” said Laurent Auguste, president and CEO of Veolia Water
Americas. “The simultaneous assessment of water and carbon, along with
economic analysis, provides organizations with a more comprehensive
framework for making truly sustainable decisions.”

MMSD and Veolia Water are partners in the largest wastewater partnership in North America. The company has provided operations and maintenance services of Milwaukee’s Jones Island and South Shore treatment water reclamation facilities since March 2008, as part of this partnership. Together, they manage a 411-square-mile service area with a 3,000-mile system of interceptor and main sewers, and typically treat more than 200 million gallons of wastewater each day.

Based in Chicago, Veolia Water North America is the leading provider of comprehensive water and wastewater partnership services to municipal and industrial customers, providing services to more than 14 million people in approximately 650 North American communities.