Wishing you a happy and safe Labor Day weekend

American Water President & CEO Walter Lynch

Hello everyone. I hope this message finds you and your family well. This weekend, we celebrate the contributions of the American worker, truly the strength and backbone of our wonderful country.

Generations before us built the massive water and wastewater infrastructure that has served American Water customers for decades. We maintain and operate more than 52,000 miles of pipeline, enough to span the globe twice. We run more than 700 treatment plants and deliver over one billion gallons of water to our customers each day. Our water and wastewater services are essential to more than 3.4 million homes and businesses and military families across the country. We touch about 4% of the U.S. population every day--almost 15 million people.

Every person across American Water contributes to our success. This year, more than ever, we’ve seen how our essential services make a meaningful difference in our customers’ lives and the communities we serve. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of our customers and our company. We’re especially appreciative of our coworkers who remain on the job during this holiday weekend, providing essential water and wastewater services to our communities.

As you know, after the holiday, we’re starting our reintegration process across our footprint. This will happen on a rolling basis, based on local factors so we can monitor how well these directives are understood and keep all employees safe by limiting the number of people in a facility at any one time.

Keeping employees safe is most important. We must stay vigilant in protecting ourselves, our families, and coworkers, and not just from COVID-19. In my last video, I spoke about several serious safety incidents over the past two months that were alarming – and should not have occurred. We call them incidents, not accidents because they were preventable.

These incidents resulted from a lack of focus on the task at hand, and employees were hurt on the job. We can’t let that happen.

As we reflect on the contributions of the American worker this Labor Day, let’s also reflect on safety. There is no job so important or a task so urgent that we can’t take the time to do it safely.

Let’s utilize pre-job safety briefings to evaluate the potential hazards and take proactive measures to eliminate them. And never hesitate to use your Stop Work Authority if you see unsafe conditions. Let’s affirm our total commitment to the safety of ourselves and our fellow employees. Please enjoy this Labor Day weekend with your family, and please be safe.

Thanks again for all you do on behalf of our customers.