Articles by Jim Lauria
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What’s In An Underdrain? More Than You Might Think
7/30/2014
Media filtration is employed for a variety of treatment applications — drinking water, wastewater recycle/reuse, and pretreatment for desalination among them — but practitioners may be missing out on a key opportunity for savings.
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Cooling Water Intake Decisions Are Heating Up
7/7/2014
Now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued its rule for cooling water intakes under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act, the race is on for more than 600 power plants and manufacturing facilities to comply. Right now, there is probably no better example in the water industry of how carefully choosing among compliance options can lead to millions of dollars in cost savings.
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Behind The Screen: When Protecting MBRs, There’s More To Pre-Screening Technology Than Just Screens
5/21/2014
There’s no doubt that effective pretreatment enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) plant — removing hair, fibers, and inorganic solids from influent at the very start creates benefits that resonate throughout the entire process. The heart of pretreatment is a good screen — but good screening technology goes well beyond the screen itself to include seals, cleaning mechanisms, and logic controls as well.
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Everything Old Is New Again
4/2/2014
As water treatment plant managers face relentless challenges — aging infrastructure, stricter watershed protection regulations, higher energy costs, growing water scarcity, and tighter budgets — solutions are emerging that blend computer-age technology with the tried-and-true practice of granular media filtration.
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In California, Come Rain Or Shine, Upfront Efficiency Is Always In Style
3/10/2014
Caught between a withering drought and floods from winter storms, California faces the worst of both worlds—dealing with scarcity as well as stormwater. America, and much of the world, is watching to see how this trendsetting state handles those challenges. After generations of setting America’s style, from cowboys to Beatniks to Beach Boys to Silicon Valley billionaires, California can set perhaps its most important trend yet—it can lead the way to a more water-efficient America. It has to. The good news is that it can.
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Looming In The Sewers: Nonwovens Are Weaving A Tangled Web
2/5/2014
Looming in the world’s sewer system are contaminants of emerging concern. They’re not the endocrine disruptors, antibiotics or painkillers we’ve been reading about for the past several years (though those are indeed a challenge). These contaminants are bigger, and like the legendary alligators rumored to lurk in the New York City sewer system when I was a kid, they are growing steadily, day by day, to pose a catastrophic threat.
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Future Trends In Financing Water Projects
11/29/2012
The American water treatment industry is facing dramatic operational challenges, maintenance challenges, and funding challenges. Our task is to seek out learning opportunities — from the world of water as well as from other industries — to find new models that will help us meet those challenges. It’s time for “just-in-time learning,” a phrase coined by management consultant John Kauke. That’s learning that is fast, flexible and delivered in the right dose, at the right time, to the right people.
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Performance Contracts: Shaking Up The Municipal Water Market?
6/19/2012
Performance contracts promise to shake up the municipal water market — and to open the drinking water and wastewater sectors to new heights of innovation, efficiency, and funding opportunities. As Steve Hoffman wrote in Planet Water: Investing in the World’s Most Valuable Resource, “the water industry is being rationalized from a delivery-based approach to a solution-based system.”
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Economy, Efficiency Drive Trend Toward Decentralized Water Treatment
5/7/2012
The next big thing may be smaller than ever. As urban areas continue to grow, many will outreach and outpace the capacity of their centralized municipal water treatment and wastewater treatment facilities, and, thus stretching the limits of cities’ crumbling infrastructure.
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Water Colors: Scanning The Spectrum To Address Scarcity
3/2/2012
Water scarcity is a growing challenge worldwide — even in countries graced with decent rainfall and a relatively robust system of dams and reservoirs. And it’s only going to get worse as populations and standards of living continue to increase.