Water Online Radio
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Bluefield’s President Weighs In On Water-Market Future(s)
6/26/2019
To crib from an old commercial and tagline made famous by a certain stock brokerage firm, "When Reese Tisdale talks, people listen." That's because Reese is the president of Bluefield Research, a highly respected advisory firm that helps companies and organizations, including municipalities, address the regulatory, technology, business, and competitive trends impacting water.
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Improved Monitoring Produces Better Decision-Making Data
6/26/2019
Each municipal water utility faces its own unique challenges, so there’s no on-size-fits-all solution for any specific problem faced by plant operators. The good news is there are ways to collect actionable data for making smarter decisions with plant assets. Armed with this information, water managers can better optimize equipment, contain costs, and produce a high-quality product. In this Water Talk interview, Amanda Scott, an industrial and environmental manager with Suez Water Technologies and Solutions, discusses how advanced water quality monitoring technology and newer approaches to emerging problems provide tighter control over daily operations at treatment plants.
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Black & Veatch Dives Into Data, Provides Strategic Direction
6/25/2019
For each of the past eight years, Black & Veatch has published its Strategic Directions Report, which provides keen insight into where technology, challenges, and needs within the water sector align, while providing a blueprint on how water professionals, municipalities, and industry can seize opportunities and solve problems. The key focus of the 2019 report, as explained by Cindy Wallis-Lage, President of Black & Veatch's global water business, is the leveraging of data to ensure sustainability, resiliency, and efficiency.
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Tools To Tackle The Aging Infrastructure Crisis
6/25/2019
Aging infrastructure is a massive issue faced by water systems of all sizes across the country. Getting a handle on the problem requires complex planning solutions that account for multiple factors such as prioritizing current resources and the need to adjust the rate structure to support future goals. Modern asset management systems allow utilities to move in the right direction by including the entire lifecycle of assets in analysis and planning. In this Water Talk interview, Vince Yee, president of Nexgen Asset Management, discusses how the most advanced solutions incorporate maintenance management systems with asset management planning features.
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The Mainstreaming Of Potable Reuse
6/25/2019
With ever-growing demand for water resources, the reuse discussion has been building for years. More utilities are considering it, policy is being created around it, and new technologies are making it more efficient. To better understand the evolving landscape, Water Talk sat down with Brown and Caldwell's regional One Water leader, Allegra da Silva.
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Top Industry Challenges, From Brown and Caldwell’s Top Exec
6/24/2019
Representing one of the leading consulting engineering firms — and one that focuses solely on water and the environment — Rich D’Amato, CEO of Brown and Caldwell, is as qualified as anyone to survey the state of the industry. Having him on board for Water Talk provided such an opportunity, and D'Amato did not disappoint. From funding to infrastructure renewal to labor, D'Amato discusses the biggest challenges facing the water/wastewater sector, how we're faring, and what's to come. Two passions for D'Amato — and imperatives for his firm — are innovation and sustainability, which provide a through-line for the many topics explored in this Water Talk interview.
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AWWA, David LaFrance Chart A New Course For Water
6/24/2019
With the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and ACE19 — its big, annual conference — both based in Denver, there were unique opportunities for this incarnation of the event, long known and respected as the largest conference focused (mostly) on drinking water in North America. David LaFrance, the CEO of AWWA, stopped by Water Talk to discuss the fresh takes on a returning theme — “Innovating the Future of Water” — including new innovators and collaborations, the latest AWWA initiatives, exciting technology trends, and progress on emerging (or persisting) industry challenges.
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Evolving Advantages For Water Distribution Infrastructure
6/24/2019
With a tried-and-true technology like ductile iron pipe, it can be easy to overlook some of the newer developments that are keeping this long-term water-industry standard relevant in the face of challenging operations. In this conversation with Maury Gaston of American Ductile Iron Pipe/American Spiral Weld and Derek Scott of American Flow Control, the benefits of new opportunities abound.
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Coming To Terms With Climate Change
6/24/2019
Lara Kammereck, Project Manager and Vice President at Carollo Engineers, got straight to the point when asked about climate change: "It is real [and] we can't escape it." So the next questions, posed by Water Talk's Todd Schnick and Bill King, revolved around what to do about it. Kammereck responds with insight on developing emergency response plans, the roles of both gray and green infrastructure, and the creation of a new, upcoming climate action plan from AWWA.
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Accessing SCADA-as-a-Service
6/23/2019
While many industry data applications capitalize on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), one water and wastewater support organization has expanded that concept to deliver complete SCADA solutions as a service. In this interview, Matt Crousillac and Rich LaPierre of Mission Communications describe their secure, affordable, turnkey SCADA service.