Darryl Macy also receives industry award for outstanding operational achievements
(Macon, GA – August 4, 2023) During the Annual Conference & Expo of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals (GAWP) held recently in Savannah, the Macon Water Authority (MWA) made it a clean sweep of the three statewide tap water taste test events, winning the People’s Choice Award for Best Tasting Drinking Water in Georgia during this final competition.
Earlier this year, the MWA won the Best Tasting Drinking Water for the state’s District 5, followed by the statewide competition for Best Tasting Drinking Water in Georgia – a battle among all eight District winners – held during the GAWP Spring Conference in Columbus.
While those two previous awards were the results of judging by industry taste test panels, the People’s Choice Award is a product of the approximately 2,000 conference attendees having an opportunity to sample each District winner to determine the People’s Choice for Best Tasting Drinking Water in Georgia.
This is the first year the MWA has swept all three GAWP taste test competitions. The Authority has built a reputation for great tasting tap water ever since winning the Award for Best Tasting Drinking Water in North America, as judged by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) in 2009.
To qualify for these competitions, the Authority could not have any permit violations at its Frank C. Amerson, Jr. Water Treatment Plant for the past year – an achievement the MWA has reached for a decade.
Another highlight of the recent GAWP Annual Conference was Darryl Macy, MWA Director of Sewer Conveyance & Water Distribution, receiving the Nathan Meredith DeJarnette Award.
The purpose of the DeJarnette Award is to further encourage and promote operational advancements and achievements in the water and water pollution control fields. The Award recognizes a GAWP Member who has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in operating a water or water pollution control facility, or who has provided outstanding service instructing and training other operators, or contributed to the advancement of the operation field, and/or developed operational devices, techniques, or programs.
N.M. DeJarnette was a founding Member of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals, who worked to organize the first Georgia Water Works Operators Short School, after seeing the importance of professional training for Georgia’s water professionals.
Among his many responsibilities at the MWA, Macy has been directing the utility’s capital project to replace all older customer meters with Automated Meter Reading (AMR) Technology. This improvement to MWA operations will allow technicians in the field to read customer water meters remotely, without having to manually check each meter on a customer’s property. This MWA meter replacement capital project is expected to be completed by next summer.
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