Water Blogged

I’m Suzanne DeLorenzo, the Director of Water Quality at San Jose Water. In my position, I'm responsible for making sure that your drinking water is the highest quality it can be. My work is essential to monitoring the quality and cleanliness of our water in terms of state and federal regulatory requirements. In 2021, our highly experienced staff collected more than 1,000 regulatory and non-regulatory samples from our distribution system and treatment plant, generating over 23,000 data points. This sampling is key to ensuring healthy water!

Mountain lions (also known as pumas and panthers), are an important apex predator in local and regional ecosystems. Recent studies of mountain lions in the Santa Cruz Mountains estimate that the population likely comprises less than 50 animals.

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SJW has been providing high quality, reliab

On a warm morning in June, Bruce Williams, the great-grandson of Edward Williams, who had been president of San Jose Water in the late 1800s, joined current SJW President Andy Gere to visit Bruce’s great-grandfather’s namesake: Williams Reservoir.

The beautiful and pristine reservoir was built when Edward was president of San Jose Water – thus its moniker.

Inflation has affected all of us – everything from soaring gas prices to basic groceries. Consumer prices were up 8.6% in May over 2021, according to the US Department of Labor. But have you thought about how inflation affects the water industry— the cost of supplies and an impact to key infrastructure projects?

There are over 8,000 acoustic, leak-detecting sensors installed on hydrants in San Jose Water’s distribution system. The initial deployment of 2,000 of these sensors used 3G to communicate changes in acoustic noise — signifying a potential leak. As all cell carriers are phasing out 3G by the end of 2022, SJW proactively replaced these with newer, 4G nodes this year. However, disposing of 2,000 sensors had to be done carefully and thoughtfully.

You may be wondering why we are talking about April results in June. It takes about two months to gather the data and for usage numbers to be released.

Unfortunately, April showers never really arrived to bring May flowers. With little precipitation and warm weather, conservation continued to be a challenge. In April 2022, customers used 2.4% more water than during the same period in 2019.

While not perfect, things are trending in the right direction. The March 2022, water use figures showed a 28% increase in usage. So, a significant improvement in April.

SJW President and COO Andy Gere was recently inducted into the University of Connecticut Academy of Distinguished Engineers alongside notable honorees such as a former economic and technology policy advisor in the Obama Administration and a retired senior executive at ExxonMobil. We had the opportunity to sit down with Andy to ask him a bit about his time at UConn and how it sparked his lifetime of dedication to the water utilities industry.