Oakland County, Michigan (April 28, 2009)

Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner John P. McCulloch told the audience at a Detroit press conference recently that he is optimistic about the success of a new Green Jobs for Blue Waters initiative sponsored by the State of Michigan.

We are faced with difficult challenges associated with escalating water rates and aging infrastructure, McCulloch said. But we have the expertise and the opportunity to work with progressive and innovative companies to build on the success of this initiative.

McCulloch, who was joined by Lt. Gov. John Cherry and Farmington Hills Mayor Jerry Ellis, touted a demonstration project that would identify areas of water loss as a result of the aging infrastructure.

What were dealing with is water demand management, McCulloch said. It is imperative to minimize water loss because it is such an expensive problem. It is expensive to treat water and then to lose that water in transport because of leaks in the system compounds the problem.

McCulloch explained that Farmington Hills and a section of Detroit will serve as the initial sites of a demonstration project to tackle the water loss issue.

We will use our limited dollars to focus on particular areas that have been identified as experiencing water loss at the rate of between 10 and 40 percent, he said. Once we determine the amount of savings, we can expand it to the entire system. From there it can grow to national and even international applications.