Benchmarking compares CUC water and wastewater ops with other utilities

Just after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued Gov. Guam over its poor water and wastewater operations, a group of the ‘best of the best environmental waterworks leaders’ came together to get Guam operations back together.

The EPA turned to the American Water Works Association and a program it developed for self assessment, peer review, and comparing or benchmarking its operations in 22 areas.

“It’s called QualServe, and the EPA allowed our Community Utility to observe last year, the Guam Review, in order to ready ourselves as the next in line,” said Lorraine A. Babauta, executive director of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation. “We put our Deputy executive director Bernard P. Villagomez in charge because he analyzes and watches the CUC Water and Wastewater Divisions and demands constant self examination coupled with affective changes,” she explained.

On April, the AWWA confirmed CUC’s participation in QualServe. It’s the first and only program in the water and wastewater industry that is:

1. Built by Utilities for the use of Utilities;

2. Principled that every Utility has continuous quality improvement everyday;

3. Administered by the world’s leading not for profit science, educational and technical association; and,

4. Involves volunteer peer reviewers from Hawaii and North American utilities.

Denver’s AWWA coordinates CUC’s QualServe, following documented guidance and procedures, beginning with CUC self evaluations, surveys and documents first sent to the QualServe Team talented, practicing peers who volunteer time away from their jobs to help CUC.

Team members average 20 years of excellent utility experience and each has already conducted at least three previous QualServe peer Reviews at similar utilities.

“This is an unmatched and unparalleled source of experience and the focus of this experience is placed solely on helping CUC become a stronger organization and better operated utility,” writes the AWWA manager of Utility Quality Programs, confirming CUC’s participation and basis for a sole source grant.

Says the American Waterworks Association, “We feel strongly about the role this program plays in insuring public health protection, and we laud your efforts to use these unique programs to insure the same for the citizens of Saipan, Rota, and Tinian.”

The U.S. Department of Interior recently notified Babauta that her grant application for “Technical Assistance” is approved at $60,000 and CUC’s share is only $10,000 covering only actual team expenses, because each QualServe Peer team member volunteer salary, or professional services free.

The QualServe Team conducts about three months of work prior to coming to the CNMI for a tightly timed, fast paced work, as scheduled by the Denver AWWA, anticipated soon.

“Working through QualServe now heads off an EPA lawsuit against CUC, as we saw in Guam,” said Babauta. (PR)