Nitrogen and phosphorus are essential nutrients — yet too much of a good thing is not always a good thing. Scientists are investigating nutrient pollution down the Mississippi River.
Like the weather, everybody complains about the nation’s withering water pipes and their trillion-dollar price tag, but nobody does anything about it. Consider a simple, inexpensive step to embarrass recalcitrant communities to open their check books, so we don’t have to pay for their neglect.
Agricultural production is one of the most important sectors of the U.S. economy, contributing more than $300 billion to the country each year. When food service and other agriculture-related industries are included, this figure rises to over $750 billion.
What would happen if there was an emergency in the U.S. that caused radioactive material to contaminate drinking water supplies? What steps could your utilities and government take?
Many drinking water utilities have made or are considering the switch from chlorine to chloramine to avoid regulated disinfection byproducts. However, the Water Research Foundation warns that chloramination presents its own set of problems.
In the years the U.S. EPA has worked under the Obama administration, the agency has been very active. Depending on your perspective, that may be good or bad. While some see new regulations as necessary to protect citizens and the environment (and to drive innovation in the water sector), others argue that recent actions have been overly restrictive and unduly burdensome.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which provides for the enhancement of the safety of public drinking water supplies through the establishment and enforcement of nationwide drinking water regulations. Congress gave the primary responsibility for establishing regulations to the U. S. EPA. Until 1990, the EPA administered a certification process for chemicals, including phosphates, to be used for potable water treatment. By Randy C. Turner, Technical Director, Swan Analytical USA
When Flint Michigan discontinued purchasing water from the Detroit Water Authority and began using the Flint River as their raw water source they unfortunately did not consider the potential impact on lead and copper corrosion and the impact on the public.
When is the last time you took a moment to stop, and smell your water? A continuous supply of clean and safe drinking water is something that most people take for granted. We rarely go to the tap doubting that the water will be clean and safe. Recently, the general population and water supply professionals have become concerned about the safety and protection of our drinking water supplies.
We all hope that the Flint Water Crisis – where cost-cutting measures led to the drinking water supply to become severely tainted with lead – was an isolated incident. However, it is not impossible that a similar event could happen again, especially in a similarly desperate city with limited financial resources. Here are a few key points that should be considered to avoid repeating such a tragedy.
This article is for those of you who need to install a new or redo an existing pH loop. These tips can help ensure accurate and consistent readings.
The City of Alliance Ohio’s water system has experienced annual Taste and Odor (T&O) events since the mid 1950’s, when the first of two reservoirs, Deer Creek Reservoir, was placed into service. Nutrient contaminants, in particular phosphorous, in the watershed accumulate in the reservoirs causing algal blooms. By Terry Keep of TrojanUV, Said Abou Abdallah of Arcadis, and Dr. Dean Reynolds, Department of Water Treatment City of Alliance, Ohio
There have been many publications lately that claim universal appeal of the ORP sensors and their applicability across the board. This concerns me, because the authors sometimes forget to mention some well-known practical limitations of the method, let alone the realities of water treatment applications potentially influencing the sensor performance.
Water is the lifeblood of electrical power plants, whether they are water-cooled steam plants or turbine-spinning hydroelectric installations. Regardless of how the facility generates electricity, there is a growing awareness that each power plant is part of its own, unique industrial watershed—drawing water from the environment, altering its contents and temperature, releasing some to the atmosphere as steam, and returning the rest to receiving waters.
Birmingham Water Works Board (BWWB), Birmingham, Alabama has consistently achieved the rating of the number five water system in the United States for water quality. BWWB’s potable water distribution system (WDS) serves 600,000 people with a daily average use of 100 million gallons (378 million liters) of water, received from nearby lakes and rivers. The system includes 51 water storage tanks, nearly 4,000 miles (6,437 km) of pipe, over 13,000 fire hydrants and over 200,000 service connections.
Chemical, petrochemical, and oil-refining plants are process-intensive operations with regulatory requirements to protect the surrounding water and air from the effects of industrial pollution. These external demands are matched by equally compelling internal pressures to address product purification needs, find alternatives to utilizing costly fresh water in production processes, reduce the carbon footprint, and operate efficiently and profitably.
VTScadaLIGHT brings superior monitoring and control capabilities to a vast array of automation projects. Perfect for small industrial and personal applications up to 50 I/O.
Hydrants share responsibilities with two important groups of professionals: (1) water departments and the utility crews that manage them; and (2) fire departments, who are the first responders to emergencies. Both groups use the hydrant for different purposes.
The Water Network Optimization Suite by Schneider Electric provides water utilities an overview of the entire water distribution network in real-time and in “future-time” by enabling operators to be forewarned of critical situations in the network so that immediate actions to prevent or mitigate service disruptions can be taken with enough lead time.
80% of your capital is invested in the distribution network. Aquis puts you in control.
Today, industrial companies need a more efficient and flexible way of developing, deploying and maintaining the software applications used to manage and improve operations.
Since 1987, Wonderware InTouch has been the world’s number one human machine interface (HMI), offering market leading innovation, brilliant graphics, legendary ease of use, unsurpassed connectivity, the industry’s best support and the broadest partner ecosystem.
Laboratory technicians are continually pressured to perform more analyses with greater accuracy and better data management. Quality assurance and control are paramount, and customers need results quickly.
Water and wastewater systems must meet stringent regulatory requirements. Accurate, precise, and timely laboratory testing is key to meeting regulations. As permit limits approach — or even go beyond — method detection limits, the ability to customize analyses and train technicians in new techniques is more important than ever.
The U.S. EPA’s Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2) was adopted in 2006 to modify the Safe Drinking Water Act and more tightly control the spread of Cryptosporidium, a microorganism that can cause gastrointestinal infection if ingested. Since its inception, the rule has posed a treatment challenge to utilities that are susceptible to the tiny contaminant. But which utilities are at risk? And how should they approach treatment?
The Eclipse i-Series model #9800i-GENESIS is the newest Intelligent Flushing & Monitoring Station Kupferle offers to maintain safe residual levels and remove DBPs from consumers' water. This permanently installed station incorporates a built-in chlorine analyzer to measure and record disinfectant residual levels based on a programmed sampling schedule.
For over 40 years, the Clean Water Act (CWA) has been a primary force protecting our waters and dictating the work of treatment professionals. And, for just as long, samplers have been the tools that allow this work to be carried out. Many plants, however, have yet to embrace the advances in technology that are transforming one of their most fundamental tools. To help usher those plants into the modern age, Water Online spoke with Endress+Hauser about how samplers have evolved to meet changing needs,
Susan Moisio, conveyance and storage leader with CH2M, sheds light on the conditions and obstacles facing municipalities as they struggle with stormwater management.
A $92-million expansion completed earlier this year (2012) at the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant (LPWRP) in Savage, MD, presents a model integration of bellwether aeration, disinfection and enhanced nutrient removal (ENR) systems added in tandem with other infrastructure upgrades, that have significantly improved the plant’s effluent and reduced harmful nutrients from reaching Chesapeake Bay.
Howard County, Maryland, Bureau of Utilities recently completed the $92-million Addition No. 7 project at the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant (LPWRP) to improve the quality of the plant’s effluent discharge and to reduce harmful nutrients reaching Chesapeake Bay. The project’s various increments took over five years to complete and incorporated innovative design solutions and state-of-the-art technologies for denitrification, aeration and disinfection. The project presents a model for Maryland’s 66 largest wastewater treatment plants and possibly procurement of municipal facilities elsewhere facing increasingly stringent regulatory changes.
For water treatment operators and utility officials, the summer months don’t just mean sunshine, pool parties, and barbecues. The season also brings the peak time for algal blooms, the toxic clouds formed in surface water thanks to increased nutrient contamination and rising temperatures. With rising instances of toxic algae around the country and increased regulations for eliminating it, utilities have had to keep pace.
The U.S. EPA’s Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2) was adopted in 2006 to modify the Safe Drinking Water Act and more tightly control the spread of Cryptosporidium, a microorganism that can cause gastrointestinal infection if ingested. Since its inception, the rule has posed a treatment challenge to utilities that are susceptible to the tiny contaminant. But which utilities are at risk? And how should they approach treatment?
What concerns drinking water municipalities the most? Is it regulations, emerging contaminants, or a crisp, clear product? To a degree, it’s all of the above. Jim Knepper of Jacobi Carbons explains.
There are a number of regulations in drinking water centered around emerging contaminants. Hexavalent chromium is one that you’ll see on the national marketplace.
Frank Rebori, president of Smith & Loveless, sat down with Water Online Radio for this live interview from the show floor at WEFTEC 2011 in Los Angeles. Rebori discussed the company's 65-year history, its current successes, and the main products it sells: wastewater pumping and treatment equipment, as well as headworks (grit removal) equipment.
Adam Festger, Market Manager, Drinking Water and Environmental Contaminant Treatment for TrojanUV, highlights some of advances in UV technology over the last few years including UV groundwater treatment, UV chemical contamination treatment and UV lamp efficiency.
Recently, cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins have become a high profile drinking water quality concern in both the United States and abroad. The combination of weather conditions, agricultural phosphate runoff, and other factors has produced water conditions that have favored the formation of cyanobacteria in surface water supplies.
Changing environmental conditions and increased regulatory oversight have combined to make discharge one of the most pressing concerns for wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) today. While many plants have found that they need to step up their treatment game to keep up, it can be a challenge to find improvements that are effective and efficient.
High levels of radionuclides (uranium/radium/etc.) in drinking water aren’t very common, but they are very dangerous. If you’ve long dealt with radionuclides, you’re familiar with the treatment requirements — but are you treating as cost effectively as possible?
KROHNE has successfully deployed its TIDALFLUX electromagnetic flowmeter solution for many applications throughout North America to provide crucial process information. This document high-lights the results of two such projects.
Think you know activated carbon? The range of capabilities is so robust that operators of all types — drinking water, wastewater, municipal, or industrial — should come to fully understand its usage.
