Veolia Water signs deal to improve water services in New York City

Veolia Water has signed a partnership contract worth $36m with the City of New York to help assist the public authority’s water and wastewater services.

For phase 1, which is alreadt underway, the company will assist the city in evaluating the performance of the existing water and wastewater systems to improve performance and reduce operating costs.

Upon completion of phase 1, New York City will decide whether or not to appoint Veolia Water to oversee phase 2 of the project, which will require a company to optimise the performance of the water and wastewater services, improving their productivity and efficiency levels.

The contract would enable the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to achieve annual savings of between $100 to $200 million on operation and maintenance costs, which represent a budget of $1.2 billion.

The municipal water and wastewater services managed by the New York City DPE are the largest in the US in terms of the number of customers.

New York City DEP Commissioner Carter Strickland said, "Through this new innovative partnership, teams of DEP employees will work with Veolia to look for efficiencies across the board in operations and maintenance and then implement the best recommendations over the next four years."