Press Releases

North Penn Water Authority Announces Retirement of Long-Time Executive Director, Tony Bellitto

Bellitto has led the organization for more than two-and-a-half decades

Lansdale, PA — November 13, 2024 –The North Penn Water Authority (NPWA) will begin to prepare for the departure of its long-time Executive Director, Tony Bellitto after a 27-year tenure. Bellitto announced that he plans to retire in a little over a year, on January 9, 2026. NPWA has named his successor will be Keith Hass, who is currently the Executive Director of the Doylestown Township Municipal Authority. The transition will involve Hass beginning his employment as NPWA’s Deputy Executive Director on January 2, 2025. This will allow a one-year transition time in which the two will work together before Hass takes over the reins as the new Executive Director after Bellitto retires.

“It has been a pleasure to work alongside Tony over several years as a Board Member,” said Bill Dingman, NPWA Board Chair. “Over these many years that Tony has been leading the North Penn Water Authority, he has ensured customers receive safe, affordable drinking water every single day while keeping the Authority strong and fiscally stable. We are thankful to Tony for capably leading the Authority through many technological and water treatment advancements, more stringent water quality regulations, and a global pandemic. Not once has the water stopped flowing or been out of regulatory compliance under his careful watch. Due to Tony’s planning and foresight, he can confidently pass the reins of a well-run, fiscally strong organization on to the next leader. We are thankful to Tony for his many years of dedicated service and strong leadership, and we wish him well in his retirement.”

Bellitto stated, “It has been the honor of my lifetime, and the pinnacle of my career, to have served in a leadership role as the Executive Director of the North Penn Water Authority for two-thirds of my 40-year career in the water industry. I am grateful to our Board of Directors, and to my predecessor Harry Borchers, for this unique opportunity. And I appreciate our dedicated staff of hard-working employees who so diligently carry out their jobs to ensure that our customers have a continuous supply of safe, reliable, high-quality water delivered to them every day. It has been a real privilege for me to serve in this role for so long.”

Since 1998, Bellitto has been at the helm of NPWA, guiding the organization and staff through periods of growth, change, and unprecedented challenges. His leadership and vision have been instrumental in shaping the organization’s success and impact within the community and the state. The Authority will recognize its 60th anniversary in 2025 with a variety of celebrations next year. Bellitto will have been the Executive Director for almost half of that 60-year history.

During his long tenure, the Authority’s customer base has grown by 50% from about 24,000 customers to over 36,000, consuming an average of 10 million gallons of water per day. The number of miles of water main in the system has also grown by 50% from about 400 miles to 600 miles. Total water sales have doubled from 2.5 billion gallons sold per year to about 5 billion gallons, including bulk water sales to new large publicly owned customers. Most of the older water mains have been replaced with new piping, and new storage tanks have been constructed to keep up with the growth.

The capacity of the Authority’s award-winning Forest Park Water Treatment Plant has been expanded several times from its original 20 million gallons per day (MGD) capacity to the current 43 MGD, with yet another plant expansion being planned in the near future. New membrane treatment processes at the plant have replaced the original sand filter design, in order to improve the effectiveness of the treatment to meet more stringent water quality standards imposed by the state and federal governments.

The Authority has embraced new technologies, including computerized water system modeling and remote meter reading, GPS mapping of an expanding infrastructure footprint, and the digitizing of all field maps. The Authority provides a high quality, dependable water supply to a growing customer base of new housing developments, along with many businesses and industries in the region which have been expanding their operations over the years. Growth has also been accomplished through building strategic partnerships with neighboring municipal utility systems. In addition, NPWA has been at the forefront of community education and media outreach, with its public relations efforts having been recognized with awards for its community engagement.

All of this has been accomplished with 20% fewer employees than were employed 25 years ago, as the Authority has embraced labor-saving technologies and implemented the cross-training of staff to improve operational efficiencies.

The North Penn Water Authority is today recognized as one of the premier Municipal Authorities in Pennsylvania, with a track record as one of the highest performing utilities in the state, either private or public. The Authority is also a member of the distinguished Partnership For Safe Water that is sponsored by the American Water Works Association (AWWA), which recognizes water utilities across the nation which continually exhibit excellence in water treatment and optimization of daily operational performance. NPWA is one of the most well-respected, well-managed, and financially stable Authorities in Pennsylvania. The water quality is consistently excellent with never any violations of the most stringent new standards. All of the infrastructure is well maintained and reliable, ensuring the highest level of dependable, uninterrupted service to its customers, all at a very modest customer cost averaging only about one dollar per day.

Bellitto has been active with the American Water Works Association (AWWA) throughout his career and their Water For People program which focuses on international water relief projects in poor communities around the world that lack access to clean, safe drinking water and sanitary facilities. He also is a Past President of the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association (PMAA). He has served as a PMAA Regional Director, and has been active on several PMAA committees, dealing with a variety of challenges that are common to other Authorities across Pennsylvania.

Bellitto is the recipient of several awards in the water industry, including the William H. Markus Award of Excellence from PMAA, the Samuel S. Baxter Award from AWWA, the Kenneth J. Miller Water For People Award from AWWA, the Special Recognition Award from the Pennsylvania Section of AWWA, and the Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence.

Bellitto is very well-known and respected in the water industry. Most recently, he has been an outspoken advocate for municipal ownership of utilities and has testified multiple times on the harms of privatizing water and wastewater utilities. He went viral on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) with over 5.2 million views for a clip of his testimony in Harrisburg in front of the House of Representatives’ Consumer Protection, Technology & Utilities Committee in support of proposed amendments to Act 12, and to reiterate the benefits of keeping authorities publicly owned. That very testimony helped drive the state’s Public Utility Commission to enact changes to its Fair Market Value regulations, making it harder for private water and wastewater utilities to pursue hostile takeovers of well-run Municipal Authorities which prefer to remain publicly owned.

Bellitto began his career with North Penn Water Authority in April, 1998 after relocating from Long Island, New York. He grew up in the Bronx, New York and was formerly employed with the New York City Bureau of Water Supply. He previously worked for two different consulting engineering firms that specialized in water supply and wastewater engineering. He earned a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering from Manhattan College, and is a licensed Professional Engineer.

Outside of NPWA, Bellitto is a familiar face in the community, as he is an ordained Permanent Deacon at Saint Stanislaus Catholic Church in Lansdale, with a Masters Degree in Theology from Saint Charles Seminary in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He is also a certified trainer and coach with Dale Carnegie & Associates. He looks forward in retirement to getting more involved in his Church ministry work, continuing with the Carnegie training programs, travelling abroad with his wife Sharon, and spending more time with his family, including his two adult children and five grandchildren.

Keith Hass’ professional background and prior work experience have prepared him very well to step into the role of NPWA’s next Executive Director. He has been the Executive Director of the Doylestown Township Municipal Authority (DTMA) for the past 7 years, so he is very familiar with the responsibilities and demands of the job of a publicly-owned water system in the region. Hass is also quite knowledgeable about NPWA, since he was previously employed at the organization and has worked closely with Bellitto over many years. Hass worked from 1997 to 2000 as the Water Quality Engineer at the Forest Park Water Treatment Plant in Chalfont, which is jointly owned by the North Penn and North Wales Water Authorities. Bellitto then hired Hass into the position of Engineering Manager at North Penn Water Authority, a position he held from 2000 to 2005. At that time, Hass obtained his Professional Engineering License and then left NPWA with a desire to diversify his career by working for a utility construction contractor, in which he had a leadership role in project management for 12 years. He then took the job of DTMA’s Executive Director in 2017, and has been in that position for the past 7 years.

Hass brings to NPWA over 25 years of relevant and increasingly responsible experience in the water business. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Bioenvironmental Engineering from Rutgers University in New Jersey and also has a Pennsylvania Waterworks Operator License. He serves as a Board member on the Pennridge Wastewater Treatment Authority Board, appointed by Perkasie Borough, and is also the President of the Dorchester Development Homeowners Association. He has been involved for many years with youth sports as an umpire and referee. Hass resides in Perkasie with his wife Kristen and three young adult children.

To sum it up, Bellitto stated, “I am very happy to welcome Keith Hass back to the North Penn Water Authority as my successor. I am confident that he will do an excellent job of carrying forward our legacy of past successes into the future. I can leave this job next year with a real peace of mind, knowing that the organization will be left in good hands with him.”

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About North Penn Water Authority

Established in 1965, North Penn Water Authority (NPWA) is a municipally owned, nonprofit Authority with a dedicated, professional workforce committed to providing the community with a safe, reliable, and economical water supply. Water supplied to their customers comes from a surface water supply that is treated at the state-of-the-art Forest Park Water Treatment Plant (FPWTP). To provide the highest quality water, the Authority has in place a water main replacement program and performs annual flushing of its approximately 600 miles of water main which serves more than 36,000 customers. NPWA also owns and maintains all fire hydrants in the service area to ensure hydrants are in working order in case of fire emergencies. NPWA employees, many of whom are NPWA customers themselves, take pride in providing this vital service to the community. For more information, please visit www.npwa.org or call 215-855-3617.