Having recently celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday, it is an opportune time to step back, take a deep breath, and consider all that we have to be thankful for. Whether it is family, friends, health, pets, or opportunities, each of us has something for which we are grateful.
If you're of the mind that the water industry is staid and stagnant, watch this interview with Xylem's Joe Vesey to have your mind changed. Vesey, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer with Xylem, describes the "massive disruption, massive change, [and] massive value creation" happening broadly across society and business, promising that it's also "going to happen in water." At Xylem, it has already begun.
For much of their history, utilities haven’t had to pay too much attention to customer experience (CX). The focus in many areas has tended to be on technologies that supported infrastructure and reduced operational costs.
Addressing past due accounts traditionally means sending out a crew to turn off the water and then sending them back to restore service when the bill is paid. This can create a less-than-ideal situation by generating significant labor costs while having a potentially negative impact on vulnerable populations. Fortunately, there is a newer method available to address revenue capture while providing enhanced customer service by avoiding a turnoff.
There’s been talk lately about empathy, its components and its general decline. A decline in empathy concerns me as an assistant professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment and Sustainability: I study how people cope with water problems or learn to share scarce resources, like water, gas, oil, and energy.
If a water utility is going to use digital communication to enhance the customer experience, it needs to ensure that it does so as seamlessly as possible.
Finding new ways to capture and utilize data is important for utilities looking to improve operating efficiency and customer service. This interview with Frank Brooks and Dave Rubin from Aclara — a smart-infrastructure solutions partner for water, gas, and/or electric utilities — outlines ways to do both within a common infrastructure.
Smart meters offer a wealth of benefits for water utilities and their customers, but anyone performing an online search will quickly feel there is a sense of uproar over their use. The truth, however, is that public health officials around the world have deemed smart meters safe. Understanding what’s behind the objections and knowing how to respond is a key to winning support for the implementation of smart meter technology.
Environmental Health Assessments (EHAs) are used to better understand the range of possible effects of environmental factors on a community’s health and wellbeing. These assessments are defined by EPA researchers as “methodical evaluations of air, water, and soil pollution impacts on human health and the environment.”
It all started with Mark Twain. Or someone who actually wasn't Mark Twain after all.
The BMS range is a new range of booster modules for reverse osmosis and ultra-filtration applications that improve efficiency with a directly coupled pump powered by a permanent magnet motor and VFD.
Bio-Microbics introduces a new generation of wastewater treatment solutions, the BioBarrier® HSMBR® (High Strength Membrane Bioreactor), to help meet the increasingly stringent needs of specialized applications. The membranes and processes used in this advanced system act as an impenetrable physical barrier for nearly all common pollutants found in wastewater today. The advanced technology offers the highest quality effluent possible on the market. The BioBarrier® MBR was the first system to be approved for water reuse (NSF/ANSI Std 350, class R) by the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) International.
Containerized seawater desalination solutions ensure water availability in a wide range of applications.
Liqui-Cel MM Series products can save the time and expense associated with inaccurate analyser readings in laboratories and testing facilities by removing dissolved gases from water and other fluids. By removing air, these devices also prevent bubble formation which can potentially alter to composition of the solution be analysed.
Process design in water treatment is historically confined to proprietary or user-defined spreadsheets on a unit operation basis, with users manually adding results from each unit process upstream into the next operation.
The NeoTech D338™ is specially designed to disinfect water and is an essential component in advanced oxidation processes.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) are two of the most common solvents that contaminate groundwater supplies in the United States. Both solvents see frequent use in the extraction of fat, in the textile industry, in the production of various pharmaceutical and chemical products. TCE is also used as a degreaser from fabricated metal parts, and PCE serves as a component of aerosol dry-cleaning solvents.
Finding new ways to capture and utilize data is important for utilities looking to improve operating efficiency and customer service. This interview with Frank Brooks and Dave Rubin from Aclara — a smart-infrastructure solutions partner for water, gas, and/or electric utilities — outlines ways to do both within a common infrastructure.
No utility wants to issue a Boil Water Notice, but if it does happen, it’s important to get it right. Even if your utility has had a long, unblemished record of delivering high-quality water, a mishandled contamination event will leave a bad taste in your customers’ mouths (so to speak).
It has been 32 years since the amended Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) banned the installation of lead pipes in water systems nationwide. Unfortunately, that decision has not yet translated into action for every lead service line (LSL) installed before that point. Fortunately, someone has done a lot of legwork toward getting a handle on that process. Here is a preview of the help they have to offer.
Eileen O’Neill, Executive Director of the Water Environment Federation (WEF), joined Water Talk from WEFTEC — the world's largest annual water quality event — to discuss WEF initiatives, the state of the water/wastewater industry, and challenges and opportunities for the future.
Observations from a conversation with Water Environment Federation (WEF) President Jenny Hartfelder
From inspecting for foreign body contaminants to complying with food safety regulations, cand makers must implement food safety programs to safeguard brand reputation and protect consumers.
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assays are used across the life cycle of a biopharmaceutical, from target identification, through CQA determination, development, and on-going quality control. This article focuses on concentration assays associated with late-stage development and biotherapeutic drug chemical manufacturing and control.
Industrial and population growth continue to outpace the supply of freshwater resources in many regions of the world. The need for additional freshwater resources is driving the need for desalination. When combined with concerns regarding climate change and harmful impacts associated with fossil fuels, desalination powered by renewable energy should be considered as a necessary part of the solution.
As fresh water supplies dwindle, search for “new water” increases, and regulations become more stringent, reverse osmosis systems have gained popularity among utilities. Their ability to treat brackish or salty water and to remove numerous contaminants provide opportunities to treat lower quality waters or reclaim treated effluent. Most concerns about reverse osmosis relate to high costs, concentrate management, and low recovery rates.
For most water or wastewater system operators, engineers, and repair crews, the only thing worse than facing a 24”-main emergency repair is facing an even larger one. To those who have never performed an emergency line stop and bypass, the idea of completing repairs with no service outage, no long-term shutdown, and no ‘boil water’ notice is almost beyond belief. To those who have, it’s a sigh of relief.
Water utilities rely on accurate and dependable flow measurement for critical process controls. Regulatory agencies also require flow monitoring and reporting, with specific accuracy limits.
Headlines in 2018 were dominated by the red tide along Florida’s Gulf Coast, which persisted for months, causing human respiratory illnesses, the deaths of dozens of Florida’s beloved dolphins and manatees, and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue and cleanup costs. Here are insights on how to forestall becoming the next city to make national headlines related to harmful algal blooms.
Inspecting for foreign body contaminants in 25 and 50 lbs bags of sugar presents many challenges. This application note explains how x-ray inspection and the right software simplifies the process.
The Leopold Type 360 Underdrain uses a modular lateral design to simplify installation. Unique hold-down brackets secure the laterals and enable service to individual underdrains through its innovative bolt down system.
This white paper explores how detectable additives are helping food processors detect and reject unwanted elements before the final product reaches consumers to preserve product safety and quality.
From the largest metropolitan utilities to the smallest water systems, leaks are a problem everywhere. Because it’s difficult to raise consumer prices to offset the losses, non-revenue water has a direct impact on the bottom line of municipal water systems. However, utility managers now have an opportunity to reverse the problem with advanced flow meter technology that combines multiple measurements.
The stated mandate of regulatory authorities (e.g. the FDA) and pharmacopeias (e.g. USP) is to establish and monitor safety, efficacy, and quality of manufactured drug products. This article examines the role of those authorities on quality during production processes.
Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) has received a lot of attention in recent years, typically regarding customer account billing. Other AMI uses within water distribution networks, however, can play equally important roles in reducing non-revenue water (NRW). Consider these contributions of networked flow meter use for automating better insights into water distribution efficiency.
Secondary metabolites of algae — including algal toxins and taste and odor compounds triggered by a harmful algal bloom — can find their way into source water, creating the risk that they will ultimately reach the water treatment plant to cause water-quality problems. Here is a checklist of considerations for mitigating those effects through cost-effective oxidation, or combined oxidization processes, across a variety of source water conditions.
Our environment is rife with testimonials to the law of unintended consequences. When it comes to water treatment, the compound 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) is the latest surprise making its way through the remediation lifecycle.
Every city facing infrastructure or operational challenges or concerns about maintaining quality of life in the face of population growth or a changing environment has benefits to gain from a unified smart-city approach. Here are some concepts for promoting understanding and acceptance among utility and government decision-makers, plus several examples of benefits already being garnered by smart cities large and small.
Anritsu x-ray systems give food & pharma producers the best combination of contaminant detection, reliability and low total cost of ownership.
New technology helps utilities meet the challenges of maintaining a safe and adequate public water supply.
To further reinforce positive customer experiences, an ice cream manufacturer challenged themselves to further minimize its already small risk of foreign body contamination by implementing x-ray inspection.
