Water Council recognized for innovation in pioneering improvements with water quality

The Water Council was recently named as a winner of the 2019 Great Lakes Leadership Awards for Water Technology Innovation.

The Great Lakes Protection Fund selected six organizations from the U.S. and Canada as recipients of the honor, which highlights water technology innovation that addresses current threats and anticipates future challenges to water quality in the Great Lakes. In announcing the award, the Fund praised Milwaukee for its efforts to spur innovations for the benefit of the Great Lakes Basin’s people and environment.

“We are honored to receive this award in recognition of the support we offer promising, innovative entrepreneurs that are tackling global water challenges with cutting-edge solutions,” said Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of The Water Council. “These entrepreneurs can be the feeder of new technologies into the market place and an engine for creating jobs.”

The Fund has been an innovation endowment established by the Great Lakes governors. The Leadership Awards were designed to celebrate efforts that accelerate new actions for protecting and improving the Great Lakes, and have the potential to improve water quality on a global scale. Winners were selected for their entrepreneurial spirit and ability to bring an influx of creative ideas, citizen involvement, private capital, and collaboration to benefit the Great Lakes.

“Connecting hundreds of technology businesses and industries from throughout the globe all focused and dependent on access to plenty of clean water, The Water Council is serving not only its membership, but all of us by addressing key threats to freshwater health,” said David Rankin, executive director of the Fund. “Its journey has been impressive and its board, industry members, supporters, and supported companies should be proud of what they have accomplished. These leaders have built new technologies and businesses that reduce run-off, improve monitoring of resource health, and make us more water secure.”

As the leading U.S. cluster and one of the most powerful water technology hubs in the world, The Water Council connects global water leaders, and all sizes of business operations to engineers, entrepreneurs, utilities, government agencies, education programs and non-profits, with valuable opportunities.

“The Water Council serves as a connector between large corporations, small businesses, universities and utilities in an effort to spark innovations and collaborations that result in improved water quality in the Great Lakes and across the world,” added Amhaus. “We hope to continue growing support for these innovators to help bring their technologies to the industries and markets where they are needed most.”

The six winners of the 2019 Great Lakes Leadership Award for Water Technology Innovation included AquaHacking, The Cleveland Water Alliance, Current, The Everglades Foundation, Imagine H2O, and The Water Council.

With the award, The Water Council received a $15,000 prize to advance its work. The Great Lakes Protection Fund plans to assist each of the winners in identifying opportunities to collaborate, and promote clean water technologies and solutions that will defend the Great Lakes from future threats.