Oregon's Largest Public Utility Switches to MWH Soft Advanced Geospatial Technology

MWH-Soft, a leading global provider of environmental and water resources applications software, announced that Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB), Oregon's largest public utility, has switched to MWH Soft InfoWater Suite to support its large-scalel, enterprise-wide geospatial hydraulic modeling. The move reinforces MWH Soft's market-leading position in advanced water infrastructure modeling and optimization solutions.

A recipient of numerous awards, including "Best Water in the Nation" by Organic Style magazine, EWEB serves approximately 200,000 people and businesses within a 238 sq mile boundary through a network of nearly 745 miles of distribution mains and 35 miles of transmission pipelines. The system's 27 covered reservoirs store a combined capacity of 97.5 million gal. The utility draws its water from the McKenzie River and channels it to its full-treatment plant, the largest in Oregon with a capacity of 72 mgd. InfoWater Suite will replace EWEB's existing modeling system with a comprehensive, easy-to-use ArcGIS-centric (ESRI, Redlands, Calif.) solution for managing its drinking water infrastructure.

“We learned first-hand that the benefits of a technological investment cannot be reaped unless the solution is easy to learn and use, and is backed by quality support,” said Brad Taylor, water resource and system planner for the Eugene Water & Electric Board. “InfoWater Suite's comprehensive functionality, speed, ease of use, seamless ArcGIS interface, reliability and outstanding technical support are legendary in our industry. We are excited by its broad range of powerful modeling and optimization capabilities—tools that will play a vital role in our decision-making process and help us optimize our capital improvement program and system operations to benefit our customers.”

The innovative network modeling technology of the MWH Soft geospatial software suite addresses every facet of water utility infrastructure management, optimization and protection, delivering the highest rate of return in the industry. Built atop ArcGIS, InfoWater Suite seamlessly integrates advanced water distribution network hydraulic, water quality and optimization functionality with the latest generation of industry-leading GIS technology.

The suite effortlessly reads GIS datasets; corrects network topology problems and data flaws; extracts pertinent modeling information; and automatically constructs, skeletonizes, loads, calibrates and quickly generates optimized solutions. The result is performance modeling that sets new levels of scalability, reliability, functionality and flexibility within the powerful ArcGIS environment, eliminating the need for inefficient, unreliable data synchronization and synching schemes or middle link interfaces required by other software. Using these advanced tools, water utilities can easily simulate and evaluate various operating conditions; pinpoint system deficiencies; and determine the most cost-effective improvements to achieve optimum performance, ensure regulatory compliance and meet new security challenges.

“Companies all over the world continue to recognize the benefits of geocentric modeling,” said Paul F. Boulos, Ph.D, president and COO of MWH Soft. “As the leader in the mainstream geospatial water resources modeling market, MWH Soft is pleased to be working with industry leaders like EWEB. InfoWater's ease of use and powerful modeling will help this much-honored utility continue to pursue quality initiatives and reach new heights of engineering and operational excellence. We look forward to participating in EWEB's success.”

Source: MWH Soft