The goal of the Intelligent Water Systems Challenge is to demonstrate the value of intelligent water systems to utilities and to foster adoption of smart water technologies, as well as give students, professionals, and technology experts the opportunity to showcase their talents and innovation with a focus on leveraging data using the tools to help utilities make better decisions. Our team was comprised of Chris Marks (Boulder Water Resource Recovery Facility); Kate Newhart (Colorado School of Mines PhD Student); Tanja Rauch-Williams (Carollo Engineers); Tzahi Cath (Colorado School of Mines); and Amanda Hering (Baylor University). We developed a statistical model to forecast ammonia in the aeration basin to inform model predictive control of aeration. This improved system has the potential to reduce over-aeration and energy consumption. Chris and Kate (pictured below) were invited to present the team’s work at WEFTEC where they were chosen as winners of the challenge, receiving $10,000 and a giant check!