The Halifax County Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has been awarded a Technical Assistance Grant by the United States Community Advancement and Improvement Program (USCAIP. The $100,000 grant will used to develop an Interactive Municipal Infrastructure Map (IMIM).

 The IDA worked with the Halifax County Service Authority (HCSA) to apply for the grant, and will work closely with them on the IMIM. "The IMIM will be a great help to our mission," says Matt Leonard, IDA Executive Director. "It will allow us to provide up-to-date information to our prospects and current clients regarding water and sewer system characteristics and capacities." The IMIM is planned to include "point-and-click" capabilities making it fast and easy to use. "We are proud to be partnering with the HCSA on this project," adds Leonard. 

"The IMIM will help the HCSA better maintain system health, evaluate operational improvements and plan for strategic infrastructure expansions," says Mark Estes, HCSA Executive Director. "We've already initiated an assessment program to evaluate our critical system components based on Likelihood of Failure (LoF) and Consequence of Failure (CoF) inputs. This IMIM will allow us to effectively map and assimilate the assessment results."

"Once the IMIM is complete, we'll use it in two ways," says Kristy Johnson, Halifax IDA Manager of Marketing and Business Development. "First we'll use it to provide real-time information to our prospects when they request water and sewer capacities. Then we'll include the data into the properties optimization initiative the IDA has already started to improve its product portfolio." 

The IMIM program will include procuring professional engineering services to collect historical system data, and field measurements. These data sets will be compiled and configured with software to create the IMIM. It is expected to take approximately one-year to complete.