A demonstration of San Jose Water’s new Emergency Water Distribution Unit (EWDU) in March 2024 highlighted the collaborative development crucial to creating a rapid-response mobile unit enabling quick and efficient drinking water delivery and distribution directly to customers during water outages, boil-water notices and emergency disaster response.
Jake Walsh, San Jose Water’s Assistant Chief of Engineers, Planning:
“Our new EWDU enables us to deploy safe water directly to our customers as quickly as possible and get closer to where the problem or event is happening — instead of loading up crates of bottled water on vehicles and transporting them to some central distribution site that may not be anywhere close to the actual water event or affected area.”
Walsh says utilities relying solely on bottled water is inherently wasteful, inefficient, and creates potential environmental impacts:
“Especially with the large amount of bottled water we have been storing, transporting, and delivering to customers every time there’s a water outage or boiled-water notice. The EWDU dispensing water in our free reusable plastic bags is much more environmentally conscious and energy efficient for us and the community. The public can come and fill their own water storage containers if they choose, but the EWDU simply provides more options for our customers aside from generating massive single-use waste plastic from dispensing bottled water.”
Source and full article by David Stewart Jones on Water Finance & Management
