NEW brand, new attitude
The Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District (GBMSD) has adopted a new brand: NEW Water. GBMSD has proudly served NE Wisconsin for more than 80 years, serving the mission of promoting public health and welfare through the collection, treatment, and reclamation of wastewater. The organization will continue to be known as the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District legally, and will continue to provide the same quality water treatment service customers have come to expect. This new brand complements a new attitude of viewing materials received as a resource to be recovered, rather than a waste with which to dispose. Further, NEW Water will be working closely with the greater NE Wisconsin community toward a common goal of clean water, an essential part of the quality of life in the watershed area. Clean water from wastewater was one of the greatest innovations of the 20th century. NEW Water looks forward to Watershed Conservation & Stewardship being its signature contribution to the 21st century.
"The water resources utility of the future: a blueprint for action."
NEW Water Executive Director Tom Sigmund will be the keynote speaker at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) conference in February. His presentation is entitled "Utility of the Future: From Blueprint to Advocacy," a vision which includes utilities serving as resource managers rather than disposers of waste. Sigmund served as the chair of the Water Resources Utility of the Future Task Force, which in conjunction with the Water Environment Federation and Water Environment Research Foundation, co-sponsored the "Water Resources Utility of the Future Document".
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Tracy Valenta has been named "Young Professional of the Year" by the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. Valenta was honored in a ceremony held at the KI Convention Center on January 24. As NEW Water's Water Resources Specialist for the past nine years, Valenta has grown the Ambient Water Quality Monitoring Program and piloted the Bay Guardian workboat collecting and monitoring water samples from the bay. During her tenure, she has collected over five million pieces of data, which are shared with the Brown County Department of Health for public safety, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin's Sea Grant Institute, and the Universities of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay.
Valenta is a credential Merchant Marine Captain through the U.S. Coast Guard, which was a rigorous five-year process in the making. She is one of only a handful of women Merchant Marine Captains on both the Green Bay and Great Lakes. She serves on the Board of the Fox Wolf Watershed Alliance, and is a member of the Northeast Wisocnsin Science and Technical Advisory Committee, the American Statistical Association, American Water Resources Association, International Association for Great Lakes Research, National Water Quality Monitoring Network, and Water Environment Federation. Valenta has represented NEW Water in numerous presentations she has given at schools and conferences both locally and nationally, and she is well respected among her peers of water chemists and biologists. This award signifies big kudos not only for Valenta, but also to all of her colleagues at NEW Water whose efforts protect the community's precious aquatic resources.