The executive director of the state’s association of water professionals came to Gainesville today with an armload of awards for the city’s Public Utilities Department.

The city department received five awards overall from the association. The state and district-wide awards recognized the department’s treatment facilities, their operators and the department’s attention to water conservation.

Jack Dozier, executive director of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals, told the City Council there were not many communities in the state that received as much recognition as the Gainesville utility.

“This doesn’t happen by accident,” he said.

Two of the utility’s treatment facilities, the Riverside Water Treatment Plant and the Linwood Wastewater Reclamation Facility, received the association’s statewide Plant of the Year awards for treatment plants of their size.

The association also recognized the plant’s operators, Damond Castleberry and Rodney Anderson, as Top Operators for the Northeast Georgia district.

Water professionals at Gainesville’s Public Utilities Department are the reason many people can turn on their taps and not even worry whether clean water will come out of them, Dozier said.

“Hug a water professional, because they do so much for you, for all of us, so we can take it for granted, ” Dozier said.