NPWA Executive Director to retire January 2026, former engineering manager hired as successor

After 26 years as Executive Director of the nonprofit North Penn Water Authority, and 40 years in the water industry, Tony Bellitto, P.E., has announced his retirement effective January 2026, and former engineering manager Keith Hass will be his successor.

“It’s time,” Bellitto, a father of two, said. “It’s been a long time here. I’m turning 65 in 14 months and I’m looking forward to spend more time with my five grandchildren and travel and do a lot more things I do not have the time to do.”

As Executive Director, the Bronx-born Bellitto is tasked with managing the 52-employee-strong NPWA organization on a daily basis, which includes the engineering department, customer service department, finance and accounting and its water treatment system.

“It’s a 24/7 operation because our product is utilized by our customers around the clock,” he said. “My responsibility as Chief Executive Officer here is to manage that and a team delegated to be responsible for our overall functioning.”

Hass, of Perkasie, who was employed at NPWA from 2000 to 2005, will be leaving his position as executive director of the Doylestown Township Municipal Authority, where he has been for eight years. He will come on board on Jan. 2, 2025, allowing a one-year transition time.

“I am very excited to join the NPWA team. There is no better group of professionals out there in the water industry,” said Hass, who worked from 1997 to 2000 as the water quality engineer at the Forest Park Water Treatment Plant, which is jointly owned by the North Penn and North Wales water authorities. “I am excited to oversee both NPWA and Forest Park, our state-of-the-art treatment plant. I know I have big shoes to fill with Tony and I’ll do my best to make North Penn proud.”

Hass, who previously worked for utility contractor Doli Construction Corp. and currently serves as an appointed board member on the Pennridge Wastewater Treatment Authority Board, jumped at the opportunity to get back to leading a public water system.

“My experience at Doylestown just reinforces my preparedness for my future as executive director for NPWA,” Hass said.

Hass, who holds a bachelor's of science degree in Bioenvironmental Engineering from Rutgers University, will come on board as a deputy executive director in January, he said.

“Tony and others in North Penn have been mentors to me,” Hass said. “Tony’s retirement is a big loss for the Pennsylvania water industry.”

Established in 1965, NPWA is comprised of 10 member municipalities – seven township and three boroughs – and serves 36,000 customers in 21 municipalities, consuming an average of 10 million gallons of water a day across 600 miles of water main. 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.

The NPWA Board members are appointed by local elected representatives to five-year terms and are responsible for directing the policies of the water authority. Bellitto’s role is responsible for executing and managing the public water system.

“In a sense,” Hass said, “NPWA is a publicly controlled water company, where our profits are not paid out to shareholders like a private water utility, like PA American or Aqua Pennsylvania. With a private utility, a portion of the private water bill that customers pay go to paying shareholders. With a public water authority, all excess revenue is placed back into the system.”

Bellitto, a past president of the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association, said his executive director role includes reporting once a month to the board on how operations are going, which can include approving water systems and servicing for new housing developments. The Board also approves an annual budget and water use rates.

“Revenues are reinvested back into the system,” Hass said. “The money never leave the local municipality.”

During Bellitto’s tenure, NPWA has made leaps and bounds in technological improvements to aid in NPWA’s operations. The advancements have also reduced its workforce by about 20% since 1998.

Water use can be remotely monitored, for instance, and there are new supervisory computer systems to allow for optimal running of the distribution system and greater operational efficiencies. In addition to computerized water system modeling, NPWA has also implemented GPS mapping of its infrastructure footprint and digitizing of all field maps.

So how does the water get to our faucets?

Years ago, NPWA stopped using its 75 groundwater wells and wholly relies on surface water. Bellitto said water is pumped six months out of the year from the Delaware River via the Point Pleasant pumping station into the Bradshaw Reservoir near Ferry Road. 

From there, it heads to Lake Galena at Peace Valley Park in Doylestown Township. From Lake Galena, the water is discharged into the north branch of the Neshaminy Creek, where it flows to the Forest Park Treatment Plant, which has a capacity of 43 million gallons per day.

There, the water is treated utilizing membrane, filtration and ozonation methods.

“From Forest Park, it is pumped into the NPWA distribution system, including going into water tanks and then right into the house,” Bellitto said. “When you turn on your faucet, that water traveled hundreds of miles, originating from reservoirs in New York.”

Various pumping stations throughout the coverage area help provide additional pressure to get water to those living at higher elevations.

“We have a better quality of water and quantity at Lake Galena (than groundwater wells),” Bellitto said. 

And what about that strong chlorine smell and taste in the water?

“Unfortunately,” Bellitto said, “we are required to chlorinate the water to eliminate possible microbe infection.  We are required to maintain certain levels throughout the distribution system.”

Chlorine, he said, will degrade in the system, so it has to be reinjected at several points in the system due to federal standards.

“I am proud of our record of water quality standards. Federal and state regulatory agencies added more stringent standards and it made us raise the bar for performance,” he said. “We never had a water regulatory violation in my 26 years of being here. We met those standards every day. We are able to provide a reliable high-quality product at low cost.”

Although the area is facing an unusual drought, Bellitto said NPWA is carefully monitoring the situation and reservoir levels.

“We have plenty of water,” Bellitto said. “Obviously, we are in a dry period here, and it will certainly rain again. We are fortunate that we no longer rely on groundwater.”

Groundwater, which Doylestown TMA relies much on, is more susceptible at this period of time. Surface water at Lake Galena is replenished by rainfall, Bellitto said.

“We have a large supply at Lake Galena and it is recharged with water pumped out of the Delaware,” Bellitto said. “There are no concerns now, but we have to be careful about water usage and not be wasteful.”   

And what are those big water tanks all about?

“The purpose of the tanks is two-fold: to provide added volume that we need during peak demand times and it gives us the pressure we need to move water throughout the system and fight fires. Putting water up in the air in a storage tank helps meet those demands,” Bellitto said. “People use more water during the day than at night, then we are draining the tank down during the day. Up in the air, it gives gravity the capacity to give us reliable pressure without fluctuation and added pressure needed for fires.”

During his 26 years, Bellitto, a professional engineer who has attained a bachelor's in Civil Engineering and a master's in Environmental Engineering from Manhattan College, and a master's in Theology from Saint Charles Seminary in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is lucky to have faced only a small amount of challenges. A major one is keeping up with the population growth in the area, which means more customers, more water usage and more miles of water to maintain underground.  

One event that stands out in Bellitto’s mind was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. While the northeastern United States was experiencing widespread power failures, NPWA customers did not lose water at all.

“Forest Park lost its main source of power for four days. Our availability of our product when power is lost is something we are proud of,” he said.

Most recently, Bellitto, who is also an ordained Permanent Deacon at Saint Stanislaus Catholic Church in Lansdale, has been an outspoken advocate for municipal ownership of utilities. He has testified multiple times on the harms of privatizing water and wastewater utilities, going viral on X (formerly Twitter) with more than 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.

Bellitto, who has received many honors including the William H. Markus Award of Excellence from PMAA, the Samuel S. Baxter Award, the Kenneth J. Miller Water For People Award, and the Special Recognition Award from the Pennsylvania Section of American Water Works Association, and the Governor's Award for Local Government Excellence, is confident NPWA will be in great hands with Hass, whom he hired back in 2000.

“He’s already familiar with the organization and very well qualified,” he said. “He comes with over 25 years of water-related experience and I’m confident he will do an excellent job.”

The Authority will recognize its 60th anniversary in 2025 with a variety of celebrations next year.