• Innovative Project In Virginia Changes Lens On Wastewater

  In September of 2016, Ted Henifin took the first sip of water purified at a pilot treatment plant developed by HRSD (Hampton Roads Sanitation District). Now, the innovative water treatment program known as SWIFT — Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow — is changing the lens through which communities and government officials view wastewater, drinking water, aquifer replenishment, and even fighting sea level rise.

• Indiana Water Privatization Needs Court Approval

  The fate of a water utility in Indiana lies in the hands of a court.

• Lifecycle Management — Enhancing The ROI Of Control System Investments

  In water plant operations, there’s no such thing as simply maintaining the status quo. Any utility that is not moving forward — in terms of utilizing data from analytical instrumentation, refining process control, and responding to regulatory standards — is falling behind.

• Boiler Feedwater – Making The Case For Reverse Osmosis

  Boiler feedwater is comprised of two very important, and increasingly expensive resources, steam condensate return and city (or well) makeup water. The condensate is valuable due to low electrical conductance, purity and high temperature. The makeup water is valuable because it is being overused and under conserved in many parts of the country, making the cost of water rise in almost all parts of the United States.

• How Drought And Other Extremes Impact Water Pollution

  A Q&A with Berkeley Lab hydrological science expert Bhavna Arora, who explains how unseasonably warm weather and drought can affect water quality

• After Cyberattack, Utility Urges Customers To Replace Credit Cards

  The water utility in San Angelo, TX, is urging customers who paid their water bill online during the summer months to immediately get a new card.

• Prioritizing Alarm Responses For Better Workforce Management

  While the laws of physics and chemistry have not changed, the ways that water and wastewater treatment plants (WTPs/WWTPs) are being forced to deal with them over the past few decades certainly have.  This ranges from increased focus on disinfection byproducts (DBPs), to tighter turbidity standards for charting Cryptosporidium removal, to emerging challenges with harmful algal blooms (HABs) and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). Even when plant throughput volume stays the same, the demands on plant operations personnel continue to increase. Here’s how evolving toward better workforce management processes can help.

• Coping With Mixed-Source Water Quality And Corrosion Challenges

  When it becomes necessary to expand or blend water supply sources, variety is not necessarily the spice of life. Whether new water sources are surface water or groundwater, fresh, brackish, seawater, or water recovered from aquifer storage, they can ultimately impact water treatment plant (WTP) operations and finished water quality — including compliance with the U.S. EPA Lead and Copper Rule.

• How To Become More Successful At Funding Water Infrastructure

  Prioritizing and funding pressing infrastructure needs can be challenging for water treatment and wastewater treatment plants (WTPs/WWTPs) of any size. The problems are particularly stressful for smaller utilities where a thin layer of upper management staff wears an inordinate number of hats. The good news is that funding assistance does exist — if you know where to look for it and take the right steps to apply for it.

• An Underdrain Like No Other

  Matt Shoemaker, North American Sales Manager for Leopold -- A Xylem Brand, talks through the features of the Type 360 Underdrain, a bolt-down system with a design that allows for longer filter runs, higher efficiency, less backwash water, and extended media life. With a flow concept that avoids dead zones and patented self-cleaning capabilities, the Type 360 is easy to own and operate. Get a close look and hear more about its unique properties in this video.

• Robertson Water Treatment Plant Celebrates 75 Years

  In 75 years, El Paso Water has come full circle. More than seven decades ago, El Paso’s population growth was stretching the border city’s water supply and requiring new approaches that would enable the city to continue to thrive.

• New Water Infrastructure Bill: A Positive Step

  The U.S. Senate has just approved “America’s Water Infrastructure Act,” which was also passed by the House of Representatives in September, clearing the way for Presidential signature. While much of the bill focuses on traditional water projects to be carried out by the Army Corps of Engineers, it includes several provisions directly addressing drinking water infrastructure.

• Disinfection Solutions From De Nora

  Daryl Weatherup, Managing Director at De Nora Water Technologies, gives an overview of De Nora's updated disinfection offerings, including its CAPITAL CONTROLS MCP ozone generator, CAPITAL CONTROLS Chlorinator, and ClorTec onsite hypochlorite generator. 

• Control Of Dysfunctional Water Utility Seized

  A judge has ordered that an Arizona water utility hand over its reins to a management entity or face jail time.

• New Testing Method For Lead And Arsenic In Contaminated Soil Saves Money And Protects Public Health

  EPA recently validated an innovative new technology to guide the cleanup of soils contaminated with arsenic and lead. The new laboratory method, based on a “virtual stomach” that mimics human digestion, estimates the bioavailability of arsenic and lead in soils quickly and inexpensively relative to animal models. This method will increase the accuracy of Human Health Risk Assessments, potentially reducing remediation costs.

• Analytical Software Predicts Sewer System Blockages

  Using historical data and Seeq analytical software, Nukon calculates when sewer blockages will occur up to 13 hours before occurrence, preventing spills.

• Leopold Type 360 Underdrain: Video

  The Leopold brand of Xylem has been providing the most efficient water and wastewater treatment filtration systems available since 1922. The Leopold difference – effectively backwashing 100 percent of the media.

• Dirty Irrigation Water Poses Health Risks

  Irrigation water used by farmers appears to be making people sick.

• Aeration Efficiencies Found With Automated Controls

  With a variety of blower combinations available to optimize aeration performance at wastewater treatment plants, efficiencies are now being found by focusing in on aeration control systems. Eric Bennett, Controls Product Manager with Aerzen, recently discussed the advantages operators are finding by deploying the company's AERProcess solution in managing energy use, optimizing biological processes and reducing wear and tear on blowers and valves.

• Philippines Potable Water System Improvement Project Uses Filter Underdrain Blocks To Improve Backwash Efficiency

  Founded in 1997, the Manila Water Company (MWC) serves the potable water needs of more than five million residents of the Philippines capital and cities to the east. The company serves as the private partner in a public-private partnership with the Philippines government in operating the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System for Metro Manila’s East Zone.

• Smart Meters: Water’s Answer To IoT

  The refinement of computing power into ever smaller devices, and the untethering of communication from hardwired networks in favor of radio frequency (RF) communication, has fueled an explosion of new internet-connected commercial and consumer capabilities labeled the “Internet of Things” (IoT). Under that concept, clustered data collection, calculation, and control applications now extend from full industrial process automation to residential HVAC, lighting, and water meters.

• SOC 2 Basics: Find Secure AMI In The Cloud, Without Getting Lost In A Fog

  The history of commercial online transactions is riddled with horror stories about data security breaches. Think Equifax, Target, Yahoo, Uber, Sony PlayStation … the list goes on. How can a utility maximize the benefits advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) offers for more efficient data collection and management, without having to worry about seeing its name on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper?

• Utilities Invoke A Nightmare: 'Imagine A Day Without Water'

  Water utilities around the country are inviting the public to think the unthinkable in a campaign kicking off October 10 known as “Imagine a Day Without Water”.

• How Is California Affected By The Clean Water Act Mess?

  Just when we thought the jurisdictional and regulatory issues concerning the federal Clean Water Act and the resulting implications could not get more complicated, recent developments have put that possibility to rest.

• Helping Customers Feel More Secure About AMI Data Use

  With any technology, new capabilities are typically associated with new requirements and responsibilities. While the bottom line of customer billing based on advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) essentially remains the same as it was with manual meter reading, the technology introduces some new “technical issues” regarding data security. For example, while more frequent RF data collection enables added layers of data insight, it also creates a new channel for potential data exposure.

• Brain-Eating Amoeba Takes Life In New Jersey

  The so-called "brain-eating" amoeba, a water-based threat that poses a risk to water utilities, has taken another life.

• Groundwater Replenished To Prevent Sea Level Rise

  Groundwater in Southeastern coastal Virginia is depleting due to over-drafting without intentional replenishment. This phenomenon makes the Potomac aquifer susceptible to saltwater intrusion as well as land subsidence, or the gradual settling or sudden sinking of the earth’s surface. The Hampton Roads Sanitation District responded to these issues by using groundwater augmentation as a way to recharge the aquifer, prevent saltwater intrusion, and potentially increase ground elevation.

• The Data Influx: Transforming Data Overload Into Business Insights

  “We have too much data” is the refrain we continually hear from water utilities. It’s no surprise that managing data from multiple sources and turning it into business insights presents a daunting challenge; however, data influx does not have to be a burden. When managed well, there’s no such thing as too much data, especially if your business is implementing a big data strategy — a topic that has implications and reach beyond the scope of this paper.

• AMI Cloud Solutions No Longer Considered Pie-In-The-Sky

  By now, most of the utilities managing the 80 percent of U.S. water meters not yet capitalizing on advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) have heard about the advantages offered by the 20 percent of utilities that are. Unfortunately, utilities large and small still cite a variety of reasons delaying their step up to AMI productivity — including smart meter installation costs, lack of in-house expertise, and capital budgets for IT support.

• Water-Access Limits Could Complicate Massive Reservoir

  Sites Reservoir is a major new water project planned in California with funding from the Proposition 1 state water bond.

• Standardizing On-Site Hypochlorite Generation Disinfection Technology In Water And Wastewater Treatment Plants Increases Safety And Eases Operations

  In late 2005, the City of Newberg, Oregon, decided to upgrade their water treatment plant disinfection process from gas chlorine to on-site hypochlorite generation (OSHG) in an effort to simplify operations and increase operator safety. The plant produced an average of 2.5 million gallons per day (MGD), with a peak capacity of 5 MGD.

• Dual Parallel Lateral Filter Underdrains Selected To Replace Underperforming Nozzle Design At Mexico's Largest Drinking Water Treatment Plant

  Located about 78 miles (125 kilometers) west of Mexico City lies the municipality of Villa de Allende, home of Mexico’s largest potable water treatment plant. The Los Berros water treatment plant was constructed in 1980 by the National Water Commission (Conagua), an agency of the Mexican government that manages the nation’s drinking water and wastewater treatment. The plant provides 396.3 million gal/day (1.5 billion L/day) of water to the country’s capital city, equivalent to approximately 25 percent of the total water supply of the western hemisphere’s most populace metropolitan area.

• World’s Largest Denitrification Plant Helps Tampa Bay Reduce Nutrient Pollution

  Nutrient pollution is getting worse in many estuaries throughout the United States, especially those on the heavily populated East Coast.

• On-Site Sodium Hypochlorite Generation Replaces Hazardous Cyanide In Precious Metal Extraction

  The Baia Mare Aurul gold mine in North Western Romania suffered a historic catastrophe in January 2000, when its dam burst, streaming out 100,000 cubic meters of waste water, largely contaminated with cyanide, commonly used in the process of mining gold, into tributaries of the Tisza River, a major waterway in Hungary.

• Race, Class Linked To Clean Water Inaccessibility

  Low-income communities and people in minority groups carry a greater burden in terms of exposure to unsafe drinking water.

• Grit Washer Helps Tarpon Springs Perfect Its Cleaning and Separation Process

  City staff were looking for an idea to remedy the logistical issues in the Tarpon Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant located in Pinellas County and known for being a small Greek community on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

• U.S. EPA Study Into Wastewater From Oil And Gas Operations Gathers Steam

  The oil industry has a wastewater problem. As shale drilling has grown, so has the issue of how to dispose of the huge amounts of water required of the process. After years of injecting brackish wastewater back into wells thousands of feet below the surface, scientists have become concerned that pressure in disposal wells is building to unsustainable levels from overuse.

• Resiliency Planning To Avoid Wastewater Runoff When The Power Goes Off

  As with the rest of our world, things tend to get ugly when the power goes off at wastewater treatment facilities. Recently, three million gallons of untreated wastewater ran into Lake Michigan during a mid-August power outage at the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility.

LATEST HEADLINES

• LANXESS Highlighting New Water Purification Technologies At IWC 2018, Booths 206 & 208

  LANXESS’ Liquid Purification Technologies business unit—operating in the United States as LANXESS Sybron Chemicals—enables customers in a wide variety of industries to meet their water purification challenges with a broad portfolio of ion exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes and other specialized technologies and services.

• Fluence Secures Another Strategic MABR Sale In The USA

  Fluence Corporation Limited is pleased to announce another strategic sale of its Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactors (MABR) technology in the USA.

• Membrane Technology Meetings Held In Washington, D.C.

  Membrane water treatment technology usage and needs in the United States was highlighted in Washington, D.C. on October 10, 2018 in a roundtable discussion held at the Office of Water of the Environmental Protection Agency.

• Cape Town Leads The Way To Drought-Proof Water Tariffs

  The South African city has topped Global Water Intelligence’s annual listing of the largest water tariff increases in 2018 with a 390% increase in the benchmark price of water and wastewater services.

• Fluence Signs Agreement With Existing China Customer For Anticipated Aspiral Sales Estimated At Minimum US$45M Over Three Years

  Fluence Corporation Limited is pleased to announce that it has signed recently an exclusive partnership agreement with ITEST in central China, to supply Aspiral Smart Packaged wastewater treatment plants along the highway system under their scope.

• Innovative Tool Allows Continental-Scale Water, Energy, And Land System Modeling

  A new large-scale hydroeconomic model, developed by a team at IIASA, will allow researchers to study water systems across whole continents, looking at sustainability of supply and the impacts of water management on the energy and agricultural sectors.

• Ben-Gurion University Researchers Participate In Trilateral Workshop On Water Challenges And Solutions With University Of Chicago And Northwestern University

  A trilateral collaboration hosted by the University of Chicago (UChicago) on Oct. 8, with researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Northwestern University, met to develop new ideas and solutions to some of the world’s most pressing water-related problems.

• Larger Cities Have Smaller Water Footprint Than Less Populated Counterparts

  Global sustainability is important now more than ever due to increasing urban populations and the resulting stress it can have on natural resources. But increased populations in cities may lead to greater efficiency, as a team of Penn State researchers discovered when they analyzed the water footprint of 65 mid- to large-sized U.S. cities.

• New Study Reveals Staggering Levels Of Microplastic Pollution In Tennessee River

  During 34 grueling days last summer, endurance athlete and scientist Dr. Andreas Fath set a world record by swimming all 652 miles of the Tennessee River, from its headwaters in Knoxville, Tennessee, to its mouth in Paducah, Kentucky.

• Malibu Implements Smart Water Management With Completion Of Water Treatment Facility

  The City of Malibu Mayor and Council members were joined on Friday, October 5 by State Senator Henry Stern, Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and representatives of the State and Regional Water Quality Control Boards for a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the official opening of Malibu's new Civic Center Water Treatment Facility.

• NACWA Lauds Bipartisan Passage Of The America's Water Infrastructure Act

  With the Senate passage of the America's Water Infrastructure Act, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) commends both the House and Senate for their strong collaboration with the Association throughout the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) process to ensure the inclusion of several bipartisan provisions that are important to the municipal clean water sector.

• NARUC Asks Congressional Leaders To “Imagine a Day Without Water”

  The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners today urges members of Congress and the nation to pay closer attention to the serious crisis of our water infrastructure. NARUC has sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging Congress and the Administration to prioritize investment in water infrastructure and resources.

• The Value of Water Campaign Celebrates Fourth Annual Imagine a Day Without Water
• Taking Inspiration From Nature, Aquaporin’s Water Purification Technology Saves Energy While Delivering High-Quality Water
• Sulzer Launches HST 30 ─ The Newest Addition To The HST™ Line Of High-Speed Turbocompressors
• JA Solar Further Promotes New Energy Development In Australia
• The Code Council Supports The Authorization Of EPA’s WaterSense Program
• Dow Microbial Control Introduces Two New Winterized AQUCAR Water Treatment Microbiocides For Hydraulic Fracturing
• APWA Applauds Congress On The Passage Of Bipartisan Water Infrastructure Bill
• Sulzer Launches Its Next Generation Intelligent Pump Controller For Monitoring And Controlling A 2-Pump Sewage Station
• Sterling Construction Company, Inc. Awarded $17M Los Angeles County Sanitation District Water Reclamation Plant Project
• Jacobs Focuses On Resilient Future With Sustainable Solutions Across Water Cycle
• British Water Hits 1,000 Presentations At Innovation Exchanges
• Diamond Technology Cleans Up PFAS-Contaminated Wastewater