Understaffing, upcoming retirements, and finding qualified replacements seem to be recurring themes in the water industry. Perhaps the answers are as much about the tools we use as the people using them. Here is how a new approach to utility data management can capture the knowledge of retiring workers, share the insight across all disciplines, and shore up the skills and interests of the next generation.
A politician in Florida thinks he has a new solution that will curb untreated sewage spills in the state: increasing the penalties for those responsible.
Investing in smart meters is a great way for water utilities to protect the interests of their ratepayers while bolstering long-term revenue and conservation efforts. However, it will likely take some work to amass support.
Because many pipe connectors and repair fittings are similar in look and adjust well to nominal pipe sizes, they can trigger an “interchangeable” or “one size fits all” mentality. The underlying problem with the “one size fits all” approach, however, is that it often means “…but not very well.” Here is a checklist of considerations for finding fittings that are closer to a perfect fit for pipeline applications.
Most people think as little as possible about the wastewater that is produced daily from their showers, bathtubs, sinks, dishwashers and toilets. But with the right techniques, it can become a valuable resource.
It all started with Mark Twain. Or someone who actually wasn't Mark Twain after all.
The more a water utility knows about its current operations, the better equipped it can be to make more informed decisions about upcoming maintenance and capital replacement programs. Here are several key approaches to identifying cost-effective ways to make merging historical asset data and current operational data as the next step toward building a stronger, more resilient utility.
Increased treatment processes apparently haven’t been enough to curb levels of a potentially dangerous contaminant in a North Carolina water supply.
Not getting a handle on NRW guarantees it will continue to haunt your operation.
Because technology is a critical part of delivering water, Denver Water tested its readiness against a cyberattack.
As an industry we continue to navigate the paradox that consumers of our product often take its value for granted. Producing clean water is no small endeavor. Whether it be the plant design, technology selection, treatment plant construction, or maintaining successful operation, each step is dependent on the others to achieve success.
In many water industry applications, a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system is considered the heartbeat of the operation. As a result, many data management decisions revolve around what the SCADA system can or cannot do and how big of a deal and expense it is to change. Can’t there be a way to devise more ROI-responsive data solutions, without having to change SCADA solutions?
Throughout history, human civilization has been bounded by the spatial and temporal supply of water: too little or too much and our ancestors moved on or perished. The advent of massive engineering projects, the availability of cheap power and human ingenuity gave us the benefit of being able to be decoupled from our relationship with water.
Vermont’s senate has passed a bill that sets a stricter standard for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination in drinking water.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have shined new light on steps that must be taken to safeguard our world’s critical resources. Addressing everything that impacts the health and economic growth of communities, the SDGs embed sustainability in the global consciousness and offer nations a roadmap for tackling the key challenges of our time.
Water scarcity makes effective loss management critical to ensuring cost-effective and environmentally responsible water service.
Two trends are turning the flowmeter industry on its ear: advances in flowmeter diagnostics and the adoption of smartphone-like technology to improve access, communications and in the not-too-distant future the displays attached to flowmeters. This article looks at trends involving tiny flowmeters, specialty flowmeters, advanced diagnostics, improved communications between flowmeters and the enterprise, and the looming trend toward embodying smartphone technology into flowmeters.
For all the talk about scarcity of source water, funding, and the next-generation labor pool in the water industry, there is one area that is not falling short — data collection. Here is how water and sewer districts inundated with data collected from a variety of central control systems, pressure loggers, and stand-alone sensors can streamline and manage that flood of data in ways that cut their major concerns down to size.
Using field flow measurement techniques allows pump owners the ability to assess the performance of their equipment. One pump owner went to the next level by completing multiple tests of their equipment over multiple years and multiple conditions.
Parkson recently had a very successful pilot test at the facility of a bio-feedstock supplier of waste products turned into fuel. The Rotoshear® unit, equipped with a .060” wedgewire screen, successfully removes solids directly from Industrial Waste Hauling trucks to recover grease. Screening this material before it enters the receiving station allows the facility to focus on proper treatment of the industrial wastewater rather than the expensive downtime to drain and clean their receiving pond.
A city in Washington State has agreed to settle a lawsuit with a former employee who accused its public utility of encouraging a workplace hostile to women.
While advancements in MDM are making it more attractive for utilities to implement the technology or make upgrades, the competing demands for water and a need to keep a lid on operating costs are quickly driving it to the realm of being a necessity.
Recent advancements are making it more appealing than ever for the dairy industry to replace heat pasteurization in favor of ultraviolet disinfection to sterilize water for its production needs.
Failure to capture meter readings at the low end of the production scale is a missed opportunity for steam system operators. Here’s why that is happening and what you can do to attack the problem.
Even though a local water treatment facility was closed more than two decades ago, a city in Indiana is paying more than $500,000 to maintain it due to a dangerous leak.
To sustain the environment and smart community growth while protecting public health, engineers, municipal health officials, and regulators need innovative wastewater treatment solutions. The latest evolution of decentralized systems can efficiently handle residential and commercial daily flows and are a cost-effective alternative to the large, centralized wastewater treatment plants of the past.
Municipal wastewater operations require significant energy to operate, but the biogas produced solely through anerobic digestion of sludge isn’t typically enough to offset the electricity and heat load demand at plants. Advanced anaerobic digestion technology, however, can change the equation so wastewater treatment plants can get closer to energy neutrality and in some cases even generate an excess.
Colleges and universities are working harder than ever to account for their resources, but getting a handle on steam production can be tricky. A growing number of schools are banking on one solution for better insight.
The technological innovation that powers water and wastewater treatment processes — like new membranes for produced water cleanup or desalination technology for stressed water systems — is largely what drives the industrial and municipal treatment industries forward.
As South Africa commemorates National Water Week from March 17 to 23 to highlight the scarcity of this vital resource, municipalities and utilities around the country are increasingly turning to technology to help them with both conservation and expanding accessibility to more communities.
Potable reuse offers a massive opportunity to recover water from the wastewater process, but projects face a variety of barriers to getting off the ground. Most successful early adopters engaged early with their constituents and implemented smaller-scale demonstration projects that were accessible to the public to prove the technology and process.
CU engineering students tackle real-world design challenges at new Denver Water treatment plant.
Residents of an Iowa town were told not to drink their tap water this month when dangerous levels of manganese were found in the supply. And most concerning may be the fact that nobody seems sure how long the contamination has been affecting residents.
The membrane bioreactor industry has matured past the point of being an experiment or a niche technology. Advancements, as well as more recent adoptions by high-profile users, are providing wastewater treatment plant operators with more incentive and a better business case to retrofit their systems.
While some water quality parameters may get more attention in industrial settings, few are more critical than conductivity. Understanding conductivity monitoring for industrial applications — where it is needed, how it works, and how to leverage the appropriate instruments and standards in order to pinpoint it — will unlock huge gains in efficiency, effectiveness, and regulatory compliance.
The City of Santa Fe has achieved a wastewater first, establishing a financing model that may offer a new revenue approach for other cities throughout the country.
Precise water quality is critical for municipal water treatment operations, but many industrial applications have even more rigorous requirements, regulations, and guidelines to follow. The energy, pharmaceutical, food processing, and other industrial fields require exact water quality in order to function efficiently.
On this World Water Day the West Basin Municipal Water District introduces a renewed approach to addressing its service area’s water future. The Water for Tomorrow Program brings new emphasis to West Basin’s commitment to protecting, securing and diversifying its water supply portfolio while building upon its history of innovation and industry leadership.
The International Code Council joins organizations worldwide in recognizing World Water Day by promoting initiatives that improve access to clean and plentiful water for all. This year’s theme is “Leaving no one behind,” a goal that the Code Council advances through its commitment to developing modern codes and standards that make water systems more efficient and sustainable and help ensure that clean, safe water is available in all homes and buildings.
The Water Environment Federation (WEF) is celebrating World Water Day 2019 with the release of its first-ever children’s storybook, Why Water’s Worth It. This highly-anticipated book came from the positive response to the video PSA that was released as part of the WATER’S WORTH IT® campaign relaunch last October.
Resiliency of water service is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve with an aging infrastructure, rapid population growth and a lack of resources. However, these challenges can be overcome through digital enhancements delivering more efficient processes and preservation of supply.
Today, on the occasion of World Water Day, international wholesale and food specialist METRO is launching the METRO Water Initiative in partnership with international water foundation One Drop.
PepsiCo announced recently that it has helped more than 22 million people in underserved communities around the world gain access to safe water since 2006.
The ISA Security Compliance Institute (ISCI) announced recently that Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls, a global industrial leader, has joined the ISA Security Compliance Institute as a strategic level member.
There is a growing sense of urgency about water scarcity as a business risk, but almost half of all companies don’t have a plan to achieve their water reduction targets.
Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria are a global public health threat causing serious illness and even death. Strains of the bacterium Enterococcus faecium (E. faecium) are generally harmless in healthy people, but can be pathogenic in immunocompromised or severely ill patients.
A total of 22 states earned an “F” grade for their performance in eliminating lead from school drinking water, according to a new study by Environment America Research & Policy Center and U.S. PIRG Education Fund.
Atlas Copco Compressors LLC launches its new LRP 700-1000 VSD+ range, featuring three vacuum pumps developed for wet, humid and dirty applications.
Salads were recently in the news—and off America’s dinner tables—when romaine lettuce was recalled nationwide. Outbreaks of intestinal illness were traced to romaine lettuce contaminated with Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.
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Water Online invites you to attend the upcoming SWAN 9th Annual Conference, May 15-16, at the Hyatt Regency Miami. This smart water event will feature over 30 global utility speakers covering operational resilience, cybersecurity, AI for wastewater, digital transformation, workforce changes, and more. View the agenda and register at https://www.swan-2019.com/
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Mueller Water Products has a long history of trust and leadership in the American flow control industry spanning more than a Century. Today, more than 150 years after its founding, it remains the only full-line supplier of flow control products used in distribution systems for municipal potable water and natural gas.
Learn more.
Will Jernigan, VP, Director of Water Efficiency
Cavanaugh & Associates
Visit the Water Intelligence Panel page.
The submersible drainage pump XJ 110 is ideal for pumping water and dirty water mixed with light abrasives. Pumps with built in AquaTronic unit will always have correct direction of impeller rotation, ensuring peak performance and reduced wear. 50 Hz: head max 52 meters, flow max 54 l/s. 60 Hz: head max 63 meters (207 feet), flow max 55 l/s (873 gpm).
Vaughan's horizontal end centrifugal suction chopper pumps come in a "flushless" mechanical seal or a standard combined bearing frame flushed...
PAX Water Technologies is the leading manufacturer of technologies that improve water quality in storage tanks and in water distribution systems. With an install base of thousands of units worldwide and an average fleet age of over seven years, PAX Mixers™ are the most frequently specified mixing system by consulting engineers and municipal water system operators.
Complete monitoring system for the automatic, continuous measurement of the specific conductivity, concentration of CIP solutions, salinity and TDS in surface water, potable water and cooling water.
De Nora Water Technologies (DNWT) is the world leader in the supply of electrochlorination of biocide solutions to the power, marine, offshore industrial water disinfection and desalination markets. Over the past thirty years, DNWT has supplied 65% of the world wide installed base of on-site generated sodium hypochlorite.
The revolutionary new ClorTec® SCT is a fully integrated patent pending design from De Nora Water Technologies. Salt, water and electricity are electrolyzed to produce up to 4.4 lb/day (2 kg/day) chlorine equivalent of hypochlorite solution at 0.7% strength. The system offers superior health and safety benefits for employees on site due to its innovative design.
Meteor® IFAS/MBBR technology is based on proprietary polyethylene biofilm carriers, which, when added to a treatment basin, provide a large internal surface area for the growth of micro-organisms.
In this video, Parkson discusses the process of biologically treating wastewater in a batch mode and what differentiates Parkson's SBR from others.
See how Xylem partnered with WateReuse Colorado and Invintions Winery to create wine using purified recycled water.
Energy is a huge portion of a wastewater treatment plant’s operating costs, with aeration blowers a significant user. System splitting with an adaptive master controller reduces electrical, maintenance, and initial investment costs.
Specialized calibration of gas mass flow meters and flow switches is what Fluid Components International does best. FCI's calibration lab has 18 NIST traceable precision flow stands to ensure you are getting the gas mass flow meter or flow switch calibrated to it's actual published specifications to match your application needs.
At De Nora Water Technologies we make water treatment easy. That’s why we offer a range of innovative treatment technologies used the world over, to help protect and preserve the world’s most precious resource. Learn more.
Providing expert insight into the most important topics in the water and wastewater industry.
Water Online is the leading source of technical information and thought leadership for the drinking water and wastewater treatment community. If you are an operator, municipal manager, engineering consultant or industrial plant manager involved in the design or maintenance of stormwater, clean water and wastewater systems, you now have access to a comprehensive Web community delivering the latest updates on water and wastewater collection, treatment and distribution technologies to give you the knowledge to succeed in your industry.
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