OUR APPROACH

RECW can help communities owned or operated by a Board of Directors or other similar groups that can legally provide a Board Resolution.

Your community must be financially under-resourced, with non-compliant or non-functioning water and wastewater systems.

RECW serves small communities in Northern California. If your community is unlikely to be serviced by county or municipal systems any time soon.

RECW can meet with your community and work to transfer the burden of owning and operating the water and/or wastewater systems to the RECW non-profit utility at affordable rates.

Under-functioning or aging water and wastewater systems pose environmental and public health threats to communities and present logistical and financial burdens to under-resourced communities.

RECW seeks small communities that would like to receive assistance to cover the financial burden of upgrading and operating their water and wastewater systems. (State Smalls).

Mission

RECW was founded to provide water systems, wastewater operations, and capital projects services to communities in California. Because we are a small nonprofit with limited collaborators and infrastructure, our rates for water and wastewater are lower than rates of for-profit utilities.

RECW’s mission is to assist communities in Northern California to shoulder the burden of operating their water and wastewater systems on limited budgets.

RECW is funded by grants from different sources, e.g., USDA, private foundations, and state and private grantmaking organizations, providing funding and technical assistance to mitigate the problems of environmental injustice, pollution, and toxic water contamination.

RECW’s overarching goal is to provide affordable and sustainable clean water/wastewater treatment to small communities.

The Challenge

Recently, the California State Water Resources Control Board, (SWRCB) has done an amazing job, creating millions of dollars annually under the SAFER Program (SAFER). Approximately $130 MM is available annually from the General Fund appropriations including general obligation bonds, and funding available through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, (DWSRF) for the approximately 5,000 publicly owned water systems (PWSs) as well as 2400 water systems, and domestic wells serving <500 citizens, under county jurisdiction (State Smalls).

From a July 26, 2022, audit, acting CA State Auditor Michael Tilden stated: “Approximately a million people in the state of California lack access to safe drinking water.”

In California counties, over 33% of State Smalls and domestic wells, under the jurisdiction of multiple California counties, have water or wastewater systems that are broken or failing, causing a public health hazard and environmental problems. Fertilizer from lawns and farms, causing nutrient overload, flows into ditches and streams, eventually finding its way into the California Rivers and Bays.
Studies conducted by the SWRCB show that much of the nutrient overload in California Rivers and Bays is caused by dysfunctional community water and wastewater systems. This is a growing public health and environmental injustice problem that imperils not only the citizens of the communities but also tidal waters in the state of California.

About Us

RECW has approval from the CA Secretary of State to do business in CA and is registered with the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts. 

RECW has been approved as a 501 (c)(3) by the US Department of the Treasury.

RECW consists of three partners:

DC Kuhns, ABD Ph.D. from UC Berkeley:

DC has had a diverse business career, as an entrepreneur, developer of projects and companies, technology commercialization specialist, mergers and acquisition specialist, turn-around specialist, and a business and financial consultant, all in the fields of renewable energy projects and the recovery of renewable resources.

DC has been a principal involved with other partners in the ownership and management of four public companies on Wall Street. These companies include two unregulated electric power utilities, using wind, biomass, photovoltaics, and hydroelectric resources to generate electricity. He has also been an officer and a board member of a global wind development company, and an officer and director of a global photovoltaics manufacturing and distribution company.

DC has a BS from Georgetown University in Medical Sciences and a Ph.D., (ABD) from UC Berkeley’s School of Education.

John Schultheis, MBA and PMP: 

John has an extensive financial background in engineering & construction, cleantech and information technology, having served as a Vice President at Bechtel Corporation, a Vice President at a clean energy consulting company, a Vice President at two cleantech startups: a microturbine manufacturer and a utility scale solar development company, and a Partner in a development company focused on cleantech opportunities.  Most recently, John has also worked as Project Manager for ERP system implementations (Oracle and NetSuite).  John has a current PMP certification, a BS in Accounting from Pennsylvania State University, and an MBA, with an emphasis in Finance/Management from Golden Gate University. 

Ian Mill, CA General Contractor-Operations:

Ian has been a licensed general contractor in the state of California for over 40 years. His extensive experience in all types of construction includes work on residential and commercial water and wastewater systems, as well as sophisticated water filtration systems.  He has been involved in projects in diverse rural communities in California, including Contra Costa, Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma, Marin, and Santa Cruz counties. 

Our History

Clean Water Solutions (CWS) 

RECW’s business model follows on the success of Clean Water Solutions (CWS), the first and only non-profit water and wastewater utility licensed by the Delaware Public Service Commission (analogous to the CA Water Board).

CWS Projects in Sussex County Delaware, currently operating:

• Country Glen II
• Grants Way
• Sandy Ridge

Answering the call from Delaware’s USDA’s RFI for three collaborators to work together, creating an innovative way to assist communities operating their own water and wastewater systems, Clean Water Solutions (CWS) was created by a Triad of not-for-profit, 501 c (3) companies.

Spearheaded by DC Kuhns, then the nonprofit EDEN Delmarva’s executive director, CWS raised grant funding of $365,000. CWS used this funding to “plant seeds” with the Delaware Public Service Commission, (DE PSC) the Delaware Assembly State Senators and Representatives, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, (DNREC), the USDA Office of Rural Development for Maryland and Delaware, and private foundations, including foundations under the Aegis of the Dupont Family in Delaware.

DE PSC awarded Triad the first and only nonprofit water and wastewater utility license in the State. Utilizing the license, CWS acquired three communities’ water and wastewater systems in the “hinterlands” of Delaware, beyond the reach of municipal or county water and wastewater projects.

In Delaware, using only grant funding, CWS ably demonstrated it could acquire, operate, and generate capital projects for refurbishment of community- scale water and wastewater systems. Now, we have brought our “proof of concept” from the state of Delaware to the state of California with an entity called Redwood Empire Clean Water, (RECW). RECW will now utilize the same business model in California.

RECW has developed innovative methods to provide funding and technical expertise in water and wastewater operations as well as ‘refurbishment’ of community-scale capital projects to communities, assisting them to rectify public health issues created by broken or inadequate water and wastewater operations.

CONTACT US 

WE’D LIKE TO HELP!

If you are interested in identifying solutions to the water/wastewater problems your systems are experiencing and are open to the idea of alternative ownership structures, please contact us.   We will provide a comprehensive overview of our ownership structure and a free assessment of your systems.  Please fill out the information below, email us or give us a call  Both our email address and phone number are below.

If you wish to find out more about Redwood Empire Clean Water, we request you please fill out the following information: