Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine recently announced 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 at the recent international wastewater and drinking water conference 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 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.
