The Morehead Utility Plant Board was awarded Area-Wide Optimization Certification for 2008, the third year in a row.
The Division of Water initiated the Area-Wide Optimization Program (AWOP) in 1997. AWOP is an effort to optimize the performance of existing surface water treatment facilities. The goal of the program is to optimize particle removal and disinfection at all filtration plants to maximize public health protection.
The state level for particle removal is 0.3 NTU, but to get the certification a plant must keep the level under 0.1 NTU 95% of the time.