WASTEWATER MEASUREMENT RESOURCES

• Replacement Vacuum Feeders For Hypo Treatment End Heavy Feeder Maintenance Burden At WWTP

  The instrumentation supervisor for the City of Baltimore, MD’s 150-MGD Back River wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) reports that replacement of problematic vacuum feeders with more advanced vacuum feed units has ended heavy maintenance burdens associated with sodium hypochlorite (hypo) treatment of plant effluent. By Cliff Lebowitz

• Key CSOs Eliminated By City Of Houston Within Tight Timeframe

  The City of Houston Public Works engaged Optimatics, Tetra Tech, and WCS Engineering to develop solutions to eliminate CSOs within a section of their sewer network. This optimization effort focused on developing solutions to eliminate CSOs in the catchment area upstream of the Eddington lift station, located to the southwest of Houston’s downtown area. As part of previous work targeting these CSOs, the City had designed a capacity upgrade for the Eddington lift station.

• SWAN Corner: Creating And Implementing A Smart Industrial Monitoring Network And Advanced Data Analytics At The City of Memphis

  The City of Memphis teamed with Brown and Caldwell to pilot a smart sensor network where water-quality monitors could be installed directly at permitted discharge points for five of the largest industrial users. The pilot project also served as a proof-of-concept project for the City to assess the feasibility of making a paradigm shift to digital water-quality monitoring as a long-term solution.

• Agentic AI In The Water Sector: From Chatbots To Digital Operators

  If AI can inform decisions, can it also help execute them? For the water sector, this distinction is not just semantic; it is the difference between a digital assistant that takes notes and a digital operator that turns valves.

• Math Solutions: Volume Calculations

  Water Online’s “Math Solutions” series, presented by wastewater consultant and trainer Dan Theobald (“Wastewater Dan”), provides an understanding of the sometimes difficult calculations involved in achieving wastewater operator certification.

• Who Sees What You Flush? Wastewater Surveillance For Public Health Is On The Rise, But A New Survey Reveals Many U.S. Adults Are Still Unaware

  Flush and forget? Not if you have a toilet that flushes to one of over 3,000 sites around the world where researchers are using wastewater to track SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But what do members of the public actually know about wastewater surveillance? And what do they think about researchers tracking what they send down the drain at their home?

• Utilizing Optimization, Thames Water Unearths Significant Leakage Benefits While Maintaining Service Levels

  Thames Water worked with eight₂0 and Optimatics to investigate whether changing dynamic valve settings and installing additional booster pumps to service tall buildings could help reduce leakage losses within their networks.

• Up Your Energy Efficiency And Save Money In The Process

  With electricity prices climbing each year and eating up a greater share of companies’ operating expenses, energy efficiency is rightly becoming a top priority for many municipalities and businesses. According to the U.S. EPA, drinking water and wastewater treatment plants account for about 30 to 40 percent of many municipal governments’ total energy consumption.

• ORP And pH — What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

  When I look back at 2016 one of the most significant trends I observed was the growing acceptance of ORP measurements, especially for monitoring disinfection. With one caveat, the ORP value measured in a solution provides an unambiguous measure of the disinfection efficacy.

• Top 10 Technologies From WEFTEC 2016

  300,000 square feet. That was the size of the tradeshow floor at WEFTEC, the world's largest annual water quality exhibition. I didn't see every technology showcased last month in New Orleans (over a thousand exhibitors were on hand), but here’s a “best of” list from the many that I came across — a snapshot of various technologies that stood out from the masses, exceptional for their level of innovation and potential for industry impact.