In April 2000, the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN) released a report titledClean & Safe Water for the 21st Century. The report states that roughly $2trillon is needed over the next 20 years for building, operating, and maintainingdrinking water and wastewater facilities. On an annual basis, this need requirescapital and O&M expenditures of about $95 million. Unfortunately, current localexpenditures of roughly $61 billion fall far short of this requirement. Thereport suggests that a significantly enhanced role by the federal government infinancing water and wastewater infrastructure is necessary, otherwise criticalinvestments may not occur. Even though WIN's rationale is sound and their case acompelling one, water and wastewater utilities cannot expect federal funding as asolution to their financial needs anytime soon. For the time being, utilitiesmust manage the best they can to meet the challenges of increasing federalmandates which include: increased costs associated with increased O&M demands;and, considerable costs needed to repair or replace deteriorating water andwastewater infrastructure assets. To achieve such O&M efficiencies, utilitiesneed to evaluate how well they are organized, identify better ways they canperform their work, and apply technology to streamline their operations.Utilities need to implement Infrastructure Management Systems (IMS). This paperidentifies the components of an IMS and discusses the benefits of a computerizedIMS. IMS implementation is also addressed.
