Sherwin-Williams Announces 2025 Water Infrastructure Impact Award Winners

CLEVELAND (September 29, 2025) – Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine announces top honors in the 2025 Sherwin-Williams Impact Award program: a striking restoration of the Sea Oaks water tower in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, and a record-setting expansion of the Sioux Falls Regional Water Reclamation Facility in South Dakota. Together, the winning projects showcase the critical role advanced protective coatings play in extending the life and performance of essential water and wastewater infrastructure. Sherwin-Williams recognized the award-winning projects at its booth (South Building – 3662) during Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC) 2025, from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1, in Chicago.

The Sea Oaks project transformed a 500,000-gallon water tower serving the Four Seasons at Sea Oaks retirement community into a vivid, nature-themed landmark. Featuring a 360-degree mural of goldfinches, monarch butterflies, dragonflies and wildflowers, the rehabilitation combined artistic design with technical precision. The Little Egg Harbor Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA) partnered with mural artist Peter Goetzinger and son Orion, applicator United Painters Inc., engineering firm Remington & Vernick Engineers, and Sherwin-Williams to create a system featuring both striking visuals and promising long-term performance, ultimately earning recognition as the 2025 Water Impact Award winner.

The Sioux Falls project involved the largest infrastructure effort in the city’s history — a $215 million expansion and rehabilitation of its Regional Water Reclamation Facility. Carried out by McCarthy Building Companies and applicator MVP Painting (in close coordination with Sherwin-Williams), the work added new aeration basins, clarifiers and upgraded systems to boost treatment capacity by 43%. The project’s robust coating systems will safeguard new and rehabilitated assets for decades, protecting taxpayer investment while supporting the city’s long-term growth.

“These award-winning projects show how protective coatings can shape the future of water and wastewater infrastructure,” says Paul Trautmann, Marketing Director for Infrastructure at Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine. “By combining technical expertise with creative problem solving, the teams behind the Sea Oaks and Sioux Falls projects demonstrated how coatings not only extend service life and reduce maintenance but also elevate the role these assets play in their communities. That combination of durability and efficiency is exactly what the Impact Awards are designed to celebrate.”

The Sherwin-Williams Impact Awards honor contractors, specifiers and asset owners for outstanding performance on water and wastewater infrastructure projects across North America. The program recognizes initiatives that protect vital assets while also extending service life and improving operational reliability for the communities those systems serve. Eligible submissions for the 2025 awards included projects completed the year prior that incorporated high-performance coating and lining technologies from Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine.

WATER IMPACT AWARD: Sea Oaks Water Tower Restoration — a Landmark Reimagined

In Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, a 500,000-gallon water tower serving the Four Seasons at Sea Oaks retirement community was transformed into both a vital utility and a work of art. The rehabilitation project turned the once plain blue tower into a nature-themed landmark adorned with goldfinches, monarch and spring azure butterflies, dragonflies, and wildflowers — creating a striking 360-degree mural. These efforts earned the project team the 2025 Sherwin-Williams Water Impact Award.

The Little Egg Harbor MUA conceived of and led the project, wanting the structure to embody community character while delivering long-term performance. Executing the vision required close coordination among mural artist Peter Goetzinger and his son Orion, coatings applicator United Painters Inc., engineering firm Remington & Vernick Engineers, and coatings supplier Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine. Together, the team delivered an intricate design that demanded both artistic precision and technical expertise.

To preserve the surprise, the tower was shrouded in containment tarps for much of the restoration. What began as a routine repainting effort gradually gave way to a larger-than-life, paint-by-numbers mural. When the tarps finally came down, the colorful scene revealed seven American goldfinches in flight and perched on native plants, accented by butterflies and dragonflies against a backdrop of meadow grasses and violets. For the surrounding 55+ community, the unveiling quickly became a source of excitement and pride.

Achieving such realism required painstaking attention to detail. The MUA, design team and Sherwin-Williams worked through multiple rounds of precision color matching, especially for the birds’ distinctive yellow plumage. In all, the tower required 21 custom colors, making sure the mural captured the vibrancy of the region’s wildlife without appearing cartoonish. Placement of each element was also carefully planned so the mural would be visible from key vantage points, including the community clubhouse and golf course.

Behind the artistry, the project was grounded in coatings performance. Applicators began by removing deteriorated coatings to prepare for a long-lasting finish. For the exterior, they applied Corothane® I GalvaPac 1K primer for corrosion resistance in the coastal environment, followed by stripe-coating weld seams and spraying a full coat of Macropoxy® 646 epoxy to protect against salt-laden air. The mural and final finish were achieved with Acrolon™ Ultra, a high-performance polyurethane designed to resist ultraviolet (UV) exposure and retain gloss and color over time. The glossy topcoat not only made the colors pop but also ensured durability against harsh weather conditions.

The team also fully rehabilitated the interior of the tower to safeguard water quality for local residents and businesses. Following minor repairs and upgrades, applicators began with a coat of Corothane I GalvaPac 1K primer, mirroring the exterior system, and added a stripe coat of Sherplate™ 600 to all weld seams for complete coverage in vulnerable areas. They then applied a full topcoat of Sherplate™ PW — a high-build, edge-retentive epoxy lining sprayed at a thick dry film thickness— to provide maximum protection.

Both coatings feature low VOC content and NSF/ANSI/CAN 600 certification for potable water service, which promote a safe and clean water supply. Sherplate PW, a 100%-solids lining that the Little Egg Harbor MUA successfully used in several past tank projects, is known for promoting longer service lives and reduced maintenance needs. By aligning the durability of the interior lining with the exterior coating system, the project team enabled the MUA to coordinate future maintenance cycles on a shared 15- to 20-year schedule or longer, minimizing disruptions while delivering long-term reliability and reduced costs.

The Sea Oaks tower is part of a broader trend for the MUA, which has refreshed several of its tanks with unique designs, from nature-inspired landscapes to beach scenes and even school mascots. Each project reflects the authority’s commitment to combining utility with creativity while using protective coatings from Sherwin-Williams to extend asset life.

Completed in 2024, the Sea Oaks tower is already a community icon, celebrated infrastructure investment and testament to how coatings can bring both protection and inspiration to public works that serve the greater good.

WASTEWATER IMPACT AWARD: Expanding Capacity and Safeguarding Assets in Sioux Falls

For the City of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the largest infrastructure project in its history was also one of its most critical. A $215 million expansion and rehabilitation of the city’s Regional Water Reclamation Facility added treatment capacity and upgraded aging systems to meet the needs of a population projected to approach 300,000 in the next decade. The scope, complexity and successful execution of the coatings work earned the project team the 2025 Sherwin-Williams Wastewater Impact Award.

The effort brought together the City of Sioux Falls, McCarthy Building Companies, industrial painting contractor MVP Painting and Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine. Collaboration was key to the project’s success in expanding the 23-acre plant with new aeration basins, clarifiers and storage tanks. The team also worked together to rehabilitate existing assets dating back to the 1980s. Every component needed protection from corrosion and chemical attack to deliver additional decades of reliable service.

From the outset, coatings specifications were a focal point. Early engagement by Sherwin-Williams helped guide the city and its contractors toward systems that prioritized durability and life cycle cost savings.

One of the project’s most significant decisions involved the four new final clarifier pools. Initial plans called for coal tar epoxy in the sludge troughs, but the team recognized the material’s limited longevity in such a harsh environment. Instead, it selected a three-coat system: a cementitious resurfacer (Dura-Plate® 2300), an intermediate epoxy phenalkamine (Dura-Plate® 235) and a flexible polyurethane topcoat (Poly-Cote™ 115). This sequence created a multi-layer barrier able to withstand temperature swings, corrosive gases and immersion service far longer than a coal tar system.

Applying these systems was not without challenge. Summer heat led to extreme outgassing from the concrete, which risked compromising adhesion. MVP Painting consulted closely with Sherwin-Williams Technical Service Representatives to monitor substrate conditions and adjust equipment — even altering spray schedules to “chase the shade” and avoid failures.

Elsewhere in the plant, protective strategies addressed both new construction and rehabilitation. Exterior piping above aeration basins faced constant exposure to hydrogen sulfide gases and salts — a recipe for rapid corrosion. Here, the team specified a high-performance polysiloxane system, Sher-Loxane® 800 over an Epo-Phen™ FF primer. This combination provided the chemical resistance, gloss retention and UV stability needed to position the pipes for remaining service-ready for a decade or more without recoating.

The aeration basins themselves received lining with Dura-Plate® 6100, a 100%-solids epoxy designed to withstand severe immersion conditions. In the facility’s older headworks building, applicators used Macropoxy® 646 to restore corroded assets, taking advantage of the mastic epoxy’s ability to adhere to marginally prepared steel surfaces. Across the plant, surface preparation was rigorous, with blasting, spark testing and ultrasonic inspections confirming coatings were applied to the specified thicknesses and standards.

The project’s success stemmed as much from communication as from materials. McCarthy’s project managers worked hand-in-hand with MVP Painting and Sherwin-Williams to address unfamiliar systems and technical nuances.

By completion in 2024, Sioux Falls had secured not only a significant increase in treatment capacity — from 21 million to 30 million gallons per day — but also the confidence that its investment was protected for years to come. With funding support from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the city made coatings decisions that balanced upfront costs with long-term performance, helping to make sure taxpayers will see lasting value.

For the community, the expansion means more than additional gallons processed. It represents resilience, stewardship and planning for the future — a facility built to meet tomorrow’s needs while standing strong against the test of time.