Jones Edmunds was honored to receive the Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce Business Award for Commitment to the Environment! Congratulations to all the winners of this year’s Business Awards! Below is a list of each winner per category:

• Commitment to the Environment – Jones Edmunds
• Community Involvement – Campbell Spellicy Engineering
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – Infotech
• Employer of the Year – Exactech
• Small Business of the Year – Salon Ziba
• Large Business of the Year – Tioga Town Center
• Small Non-Profit of the Year – The Education Foundation
• Large Non-Profit of the Year – Grace
• Leading Women’s Business – Sweetwater Branch Inn
• New Business of the Year – Honey Bee Pediatrics
• Tech Company of the Year – Feathr

Kristen Farrell and Chris Meyers proudly represented our firm Wednesday evening at the awards ceremony, which took place at the Best Western Gateway Grand.

Jones Edmunds’ commitment to the environment is represented through our efforts to make the world a better place by making Florida communities safer and sustainable for generations. Improving the quality of our natural and built environment is critical to how we approach our work. As a founding member of Resiliency Florida, we routinely build resilience and sustainability strategies into our planning processes and infrastructure designs, as evidenced by recent examples in our local community.

Jones Edmunds is currently assisting Alachua County in predicting and planning for the potential effects of climate change to develop a Critical Infrastructure and Land Use Climate Vulnerability Analysis. As an inland county, Alachua County can be a destination for citizens relocating from coastal areas, which will place additional stresses on infrastructure and land use. We are reviewing relevant science-based literature, maps, models, plans, and assessments to make projections of future climate-related changes and advise the County on direct and indirect projected climate change impacts through 2100. In addition, we assist similar communities throughout the state to quantify future climate change impacts on their critical assets, like Alachua County, and several other inland communities, where the process of conducting Vulnerability Assessments has yet to be as well-defined as for coastal communities. Jones Edmunds has been at the forefront of developing cost-effective approaches to analyze future community vulnerabilities.

We also recently worked with Gainesville Regional Utilities to protect their wastewater collection system from damage, excessive energy use, and potential contamination of the environment with our design of a Programmatic Approach to Infiltration and Inflow (I&I) Reduction. I&I is defined as groundwater and stormwater that enters a sewer system, forcing more water to flow through the system than it was designed to handle. We presented our solutions at Florida Water Environment Association and American Public Works Association conferences and as part of a series of complimentary webinars that Jones Edmunds provided for Professional Engineers continuing education requirements.

Impairment of some of the state’s water bodies remains a concern. The pollutants causing these impairments often originate from multiple sources, such as septic tanks and stormwater runoff. Jones Edmunds continues to pioneer stormwater treatment design and septic-to-sewer projects and is recognized as an industry leader in septic-to-sewer design. Specifically, we were requested to co-author the WEF alternative sewer system guidance manual this past year and create the FWEA Septic to Sewer Guidance documents. Engineers and communities will use these state and national standards manuals to improve local water quality.

We are grateful for the opportunity to serve the community where we live, work, and play and make a difference in the Greater Gainesville region and beyond!