The Clean Water Voice

Regulatory developments at both the federal and state levels are increasing the pressure on wastewater utilities dealing with PFAS. Maine, Connecticut, and Michigan have already enacted laws that limit utilities’ options for the land application of sludge and biosolids, driving up costs significantly, and threatening landfill capacity.

The complexities of cybersecurity can impede a water utility’s ability to initiate new projects with confidence. This article describes 10 practical cybersecurity recommendations utilities can use to kick-start their risk reduction efforts for their supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system.

Managing change in the workplace is particularly challenging, especially in environments with long tenured employees, a common scenario in utilities. Employees who have been with an organization for long periods of time are crucial for maintaining smooth operations. However, there comes a point when change is necessary, such as adopting new digital technologies at a water utility.

A distributed energy system can provide great opportunities for a municipal district looking to take advantage of a community’s nearby resources. Such a system adopts either a central plant or “microgrid” concept to leverage fuel flexibility for centralized energy delivery.

On March 14, 2024, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a final rule requiring certain facilities to develop Facility Response Plans (FRPs) for a potential worst-case discharge of Clean Water Act (CWA) hazardous substances, including planning for the threat of a worst-case discharge.

The water sector is at a critical juncture. Changing weather patterns are impacting supply as demand grows, putting utilities under pressure to keep the taps running while meeting mounting regulations. As climate impacts intensify, utility managers face a dual challenge: how to adapt to climate change while mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing sectors across the board, its application within water and wastewater management is demonstrating the power of smart technology to secure a resilient future.

A mysterious pollutant was swirling beneath the streets in one corner of El Paso. Our everyday utility monitoring revealed that high levels of heavy metals – mercury, copper, nickel and aluminum – were flowing through local sewers into one of our four wastewater plants. This was a troubling discovery.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (together, the Agencies) issued a straight-to-final-rule revised definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) on August 29, 2023.

In the field of wastewater treatment, a surprise in day-to-day operations is rarely a positive event. This spring, the Environmental Services (ES) division of the Metropolitan Council, responsible for the regional wastewater treatment system serving 111 customer cities and townships in the Twin Cities metro region, made an unexpected discovery at one of their wastewater treatment plants that sparked months-long national media attention and greatly increased the visibility of the organization.

In the ever-evolving world of water projects, the concept of Progressive Design-Build (PDB) has emerged as a game changer.

One of the most transformative technologies in the water industry today centers around planning and implementing Digital Twins. Benefits of this technology include increased speed of delivery, improved compliance, better allocation of resources, and...

Dating back to the Bronze Age, humans have used wastewater and stormwater for irrigation of crops. Since that time, reuse has evolved with applications moving beyond agriculture to include non-potable uses such as cooling and toilet flushing and potable uses such as groundwater and reservoir augmentation. Shifting factors such as population growth and climate change have...

The race to net-zero emissions is on. Just as the water sector is helping make the world more sustainable by delivering clean water and reliable sanitation to communities, we also can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to help slow climate change.

The recently passed infrastructure bill has put renewed focus on the role of advanced technologies and the power of digital solutions to cost-effectively modernize our critical networks. As the single largest investment in infrastructure that the federal government has ever made, the timing couldn’t be more significant. Utilities continue to navigate the operational and economic complexities of a...

As water utilities continue to lean into digital technologies, a new category is proving transformative. More and more utilities are building real time decision support systems (RT-DSS) as the digital connective tissue to unlock big returns from their investments in gray, green and IT infrastructure. Today utilities can barely remember how they survived without...

I was recently flattered to be selected from all the strong female leaders in WSSC Water to represent the organization in the Women in Water (WIW) Roundtable Group, a six-month virtual program offered through NACWA and Core Consulting’s Core Leadership collaboration. The program is oriented towards mid-level professionals, but anyone from inspiring leaders to executive staff can...

I recently had the opportunity to participate in “Core Growth for Emerging Leaders: Building Water’s Future Leaders,” a training program under NACWA and Core Consulting Group’s recently formed Core Leadership offering. The program is based on a regional cohort model of 15-20 participants from several utilities in the same region coming together to form a class.

Over the last eighteen months, cities on the frontline have been navigating the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The water sector faced its own unique challenges, as utilities across the country did their best to maintain essential services such as access to water and sanitation. Those who had implemented digital capabilities were far better equipped to weather the storm, focusing the industry’s attention on the role of digital solutions in promoting greater resiliency.

The city’s stormwater management programme has seriously reduced the risk of combined sewer overflow events in the decade since it was launched. As it starts work on a second stage of the project, the city’s water utility will need buy-in from its commercial customers.