Focus on Apprenticeship Programs It is no secret that drinking water and wastewater utilities are facing a shortage of workers due to job growth and the retirement of the baby boomer generation. Nationwide, over 30-50% of the water workforce is expected to leave the industry in the next decade due to just retirements alone. However, some states, and especially those with a large percentage of smaller, rural systems such as Idaho, face even more serious shortages. To make matters worse, it isn't always easy for new folks to get a foot in the door. High school graduates may not be aware of the water industry jobs available in their own communities, and even if they become aware, it can take a significant investment of on-the-job experience and education to obtain the proper knowledge and licensure to become an operater. This is why many state & local governments, community colleges, utilities and water organizations have been collaborating to develop apprenticeship training programs across the country. For example, Indiana Alliance of Rural Water runs an apprentice program as part of a larger NRWA water sector apprenticeship initiative. Their apprentices train alongside experienced technicians while earning a entry-level wage, all in the interest of creating a more robust workforce for the state. Another water organization, the Water Environment Association, has recently been collaborating with the City of Baltimore to train young people for the water industry. The Baltimore City Water Industry Career Mentoring Program, now in its third year, is an eight-month program for 18-24 year olds that provides water industry career exploration, worksite tours and job shadowing, connections with a career coach/mentor, a summer job at Department of Public Works, and opportunities to interview for full-time, entry-level positions. Other recent initiatives attempt to recruit workers even before they graduate from high school. A youth apprenticeship program sponsored in part by New Water in Green Bay, WI, offers students the opportunity to gain valuable work experience and insights into the wastewater industry while still attending high school. NEW Water collaborates with the Greater Green Bay Chamber, Northwest Technical College and area school districts for this program. More and more municipalities are also responding to the need to plan for their futures via apprenticeship programs. The city of Prestonsburg, KY, for example, has recently announced the creation of a 3-year apprenticeship program. Their program partners with a local community college to reduce the time it takes to become a certified water or wastewater treatment operator, giving the city a competitive edge in the race to replace their retiring operators. Finally, the rise in the need for, and popularity of, apprenticeship programs underscores the importance of continuous monitoring to ensure that apprenticeship outcomes are measuring up to expectations. According to the LA Times, an audit of the apprentice program for Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power revealed that only 51% of those enrolled actually graduated, and those with the highest level of training were being recruited elsewhere. Interested in learning about apprenticeship programs in your state? The American Water Works Association and the Water Environment Federation ;each have large and active job banks that are updated daily. You can type "apprentice" as a key word to find some of the opportunities out there. May 22, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Workforce apprenticeship programs, apprenticeships, retirements, succession planning, workforce, workforce development 0 0 Comment Read More »
Serious Water Gaming Interested in combining work with pleasure? Need a fun idea for a training session? Then take a look at this list of gaming opportunities (using the serious game approach) for water professionals. Utility Management Simulation Game - free online game Can you keep the utility from going bankrupt? Will service quality bring in more financial resources? What happens when your assumptions change? See how you would cope by playing the game. California Water Crisis - board game This game introduces the politics of water and puts players in the driver’s seat as they take on drought. Participants assume the role of one of California’s three main regions — NorCal, SoCal and the Central Valley — all of which have different starting resources, strengths, weaknesses and strategies. Along the way, players are exposed to various challenges like special interest groups and population growth that reflect the real-world complexities involved with resolving an environmental crisis. The Groundwater Commons Game - free role-play Excel-assisted Simulations of three major aquifer systems currently facing unsustainable demands—the Punjab (India/Pakistan), the Central Valley (USA), and the Murray-Darling Basin (Australia)—reveal tipping points where social norms and collective attitudes towards groundwater conservation shift abruptly with small changes in cultural values and enforcement provisions. The Best Dam Simulation Ever - free online game This game will help you learn about the many uses of the Columbia River and how controlling the water behind the dams can affect each one. River Basin Balancer - free online game This game developed by the Army Corps of Engineers offers insight into an inland waterway and a system of reservoirs, which are operated with a goal for serving each of the benefits, flood control, navigation, hydropower, irrigation, water supply, recreation, fish and wildlife, and water quality. Users can take charge of river operations and experience the unique challenges presented when managing reservoir operations in a variety of weather conditions across a geographically diverse basin. Aqua Republica - free online game While the world of Aqua Republica is fictitious, the challenges of sustainably managing a limited supply of water resources in a situation of growing demand between multiple users and uses are very much based on real life scenarios. Decisions involve developing urban infrastructure and agriculture based on water supply of the local river. Interested in how serious gaming can help water managers, utilities and other stakeholders resolve complex issues? Check out this article. May 18, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Utility Management, Workforce games, gaming, serious gaming, simulations, training games, water games 0 0 Comment Read More »
Featured Video: Using Decommissioned Wastewater Tanks for Fish Farming Just when you think you've seen it all, someone comes up with a crazy idea that holds some promise. This just might be true in the case of a local aquaculture businessman, who, along with a Kentucky State University researcher, looked at outdated wastewater treatment plants and source water reservoirs and envisioned profitable fish farms! This week's featured video explains how Steve Mims and Tim Parrott used a USDA grant a few years ago to turn decommissioned wastewater plants into working aquaculture farms (pg. 8) using treated effluent in digester tanks and daphnia (as fish food) from upgraded facilities that are often just next door. The tanks don't generate waste because the water cycles right back to the treatment plant. His big idea? To establish regional fish hatcheries through public-private partnerships, with young fingerlings sold to local farmers to raise in their own ponds all the while adding commercial-level fish and caviar production to the rural economies of Kentucky. So add fish farming to all the creative ways to recycle wastewater that people have been coming up with recently! March 9, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Capacity Development, Wastewater aquaculture, asset management, capactiy, daphnia, fish farming, paddlefish, wastewater treatment 0 0 Comment Read More »
Drinking Water and Lead Service Lines: Partnering to Protect Human Health Last month, the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative, a group that includes the AWWA, NRWA, ASDWA, NAWC, RCAP and WRF among others, hosted a panel discussion entitled "Drinking Water and Lead Service Lines: Partnering to Protect Human Health." The focus of this discussion was how partnerships between water utilities and public health agencies are key to helping lead service pipe replacement programs really get off the ground. Dr. Lynn Goldman from the Milken Institute School of Public Health started off the discussion by providing historical context, pointing to precedents that allowed lead to be "managed in place" while also allowing higher lead levels in water to be acceptable practice. She explained that when EPA's first Lead and Copper standard (1992) began to improve health outcomes for water consumers, lower-level effects began to be unmasked. This phenomenon, according to Goldman, underscores the importance of enacting revisions to the Lead & Copper Rule, as well as best practices for lead sampling strategies. Goldman emphasized the importance of developing carefully crafted lead pipe removal programs so that more lead isn't released into drinking water supplies during the remediation process. Other takeaways from the panel of speakers include the following: Some communities bear disproportional consequence of lead contamination. Lead poisoning can go undetected in individuals, but even low levels of lead affect the brain. Action alerts vary state-by-state, but Amanda Reddy from the National Center for Healthy Housing recommends an action level of 5 ug/dL. Lead-based paint is the most widespread cause of lead poisoning, but we need comprehensive solutions to address ALL hazards. There are proven & cost effective solutions. In fact, replacing lead service lines for just the children born in 2018 would protect 350,000 individuals from future lead poisoning. Solutions must include diverse stakeholders including drinking water professionals, public health officials, elected officials, community leaders and concerned consumers. Lead contamination resources need to be easily accessible for individuals affected by lead in their drinking supply. Simply providing bottled water is not a long-term solution. Public Health representatives from two municipalities (Milwaukee and Cincinnati) also spoke at the forum, and offered their lessons learned: Partial Lead Service Line replacement can cause more lead to be released into drinking water supplies. Full line replacement should be the desired strategy, and working with all stakeholders to pass city-wide ordinances requiring full replacement is the most effective way to do this. Developing lead protocols for emergency leaks and repairs is critical. City-wide outreach and education/awareness campaigns are a must. Prioritizing schools or childcare facilities for line replacement makes sense. Milwaukee used Wisconsin's Drinking Water State Revolving Funds to replace service lines at schools, Cincinnati used a HUD grant to replace service lines for low-income residents. Cincinnati formed a county-level collaborative and pooled resources, technical providers, outreach professionals. They also targeted their outreach to PTAs, Church groups, community organizations. Challenges include: switching out interior plumbing (inside private residences), missing out on targeting some childcare/schools because they are not licensed, and finding the time and resources to communicate effectively with customers. Finally, Cathy Bailey, from Greater Cincinnati Water Works, a system that encompasses an area with the second highest child poverty rate and second-highest number of lead lines in the country, offered her perspective. Her system has adopted a 15-year program for full service line replacement, with cost-assistance for low-income residents and cost-sharing arrangements for other property owners. Her advice for water systems? Water Utilities should lead the effort to start the conversation about lead in drinking water and service line replacement. Utilities have a big stake in this issue. Utilities can be proactive in providing tools and education to their community. Cincinnati provides online resources such as a lead "map' and free lead testing as well as assistance to schools funded by their general operating budget. Utilities can be proactive in communicating within their organization. Cincinnati Water Works has an internal dashboard to compile lead test results, health statistics and more. They then can identify homes that qualify for free P.O.U filters. Cincinnati Water Works partners with the health department to share data, understand water quality issues and help individuals and schools mediate problems. The panel participant's message was clear: lead service line replacement is simply the right thing to do for communities, and partnerships with health departments and water utilities are critical to that process. Want to find out more? Check out the Lead Service Line Collaborative's online roadmap/toolkit or follow #safewater on Twitter. March 5, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Distribution, Funding, Regulations corrosion control, distribution, distribution system, funding, lcr, lead, lead management, lead reduction, lead service line replacement, partnerships, pipes, public health, water treatment 0 0 Comment Read More »
Featured Videos: Onsite Wastewater Systems According to the US Census Bureau, one in four homes in the U.S. is served by an onsite wastewater system. Our first featured video this week explores some of these onsite options and then explains in simple terms how each of these systems work in different soil conditions and what it takes to maintain them. In the end, the video shows how the cost-effectiveness of septic systems can often more than outweigh the cost of a centralized system for many smaller communities. Wondering how to find the funding to get these types of decentralized systems off the ground? Our second video this week explores how innovative partnerships and Clean Water State Revolving Funds can be used for exactly these kinds of projects. Do you want to find out more about onsite wastewater options and how to pay for them? Head over to our resource library and pick "decentralized ww systems" as a category! February 16, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Capacity Development, Funding, Small System O&M, Wastewater clean water state revolving fund, cluster systems, cluster wastewater, cwsrf, decentralized wastewater, decentralized wastewater treatment, financial managment, funding, grants, loans, onsite, onsite wastewater, on-site wastewater , onsite wastewater treatment, on-site wastewater treatment, partnerships 0 0 Comment Read More »
WaterOperator.org Staff Interviews Illinois Small Systems This past year, WaterOperator.org program director Steve Wilson and his staff were out and about in rural Illinois talking to water and wastewater operators about their struggles as well as their strategies. The interviews were part of a ISAWWA Small Systems Committee (SCC) initiative to bring to light the significant challenges encountered by small systems across the state. The results of these interviews were published as a series of eight articles entitled "Putting the Focus on Small Systems" in the Fall 2017 edition of ISAWWA's Splash magazine. Each article describes the unique challenges encountered by a specific system. In the small town of Monticello, for instance, water works manager Scott Bailey (shown above with WaterOperator staff member Alison Meanor) describes how he manages an aging distribution system while tackling arsenic compliance issues. And in the small communities of Beason and Chestnut, Chair of the Water District Board Mark Carlin shares how the board proactively reached out to RCAP staff for help with funding much-needed infrastructure improvements. Many thanks to the operators, board members, technical assistance providers and government officials who agreed to meet with us and talk about their systems! February 12, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Capacity Development, Distribution, Funding, Regulations, Small System O&M, WaterOperator.org arsenic, capacity development, compliance, funding, infrastructure, regulations, rural systems, small system o & m, Small systems, standards 0 0 Comment Read More »
Featured Video: Alaska Rural Utility Collaborative These past few weeks, our featured videos have highlighted the infrastructure needs and challenges of water utilities from several different angles: kids' PSAs, rural utilities' infrastructure improvement projects, and operational know-how for utility administrators. But maybe your community is past all that. Your community knows what your needs are. You've studied what other utilities in similar situations have done. Your utility's leaders all have a good grasp of what the problem is and how to fix it. What comes next? There are a couple of different answers to that question, depending on your specific circumstances and the place where you live. You might need to contact a technical assistance provider or an engineer. You might need to apply for a grant. Depending on where you live, you may also benefit from joining a regional partnership. In Alaska, some rural communities have joined the Alaska Rural Utility Collaborative (ARUC), which helps streamline and standardize billing and assists with infrastructure improvements. This week's video features brief interviews with communities that have benefited from this partnership. (Please note that the first 8 seconds of this video are a black screen. The video will begin after this brief pause.) For more on regional partnerships, see our featured video on a regional partnership in the Southwest. January 12, 2018 By Cassia Smith Asset Management, Business Mindset, Capacity Development, Tribal Systems Alaska, regional partnerships, tribal systems, tribal utilities, featured videos, utility management 0 0 Comment Read More »
Featured Video: Wastewater Treatment Series If you've worked in administration at a wastewater utility, you probably know the whole process is a lot more complicated than some might think. Even the process of getting the waste from the houses in the community to the treatment center requires vigilance. And then the steps of the treatment process start to pile up. Preliminary, primary, secondary, and then there's sludge and effluent and different ways of handling those. Whether you're the mayor, on the board of directors, answering phones in the office, or cutting the checks, you've probably had to deal with different stage of this process over the course of your job. If that's the case, here's a chance to brush up on the details of wastewater treatment without getting overwhelmed by technical language. In this week's video series, knowledgeable staffers from the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP) explain the technical steps of wastewater in layman's terms. These videos are intended to help leaders, board members, and other administrative staff understand what's going on in the operation of their utility. This understanding can help you understand how to make wise operational, maintenance, and expansion decisions that take the realities of utility operation into account. The introduction video is embedded below; each of the following videos can be viewed by clicking on the titles below. Wastewater Treatment - Introduction from RCAP on Vimeo. Wastewater Treatment - Collection System Wastewater Treatment - Preliminary Treatment Wastewater Treatment - Primary Treatment Wastewater Treatment - Secondary Treatment Wastewater Treatment - Solids and Sludge Handling Wastewater Treatment - Effluent Disinfection Wastewater Treatment - Effluent Disposal For more on wastewater treatment for non-operators, see RCAP's A Drop of Knowledge handbook for wastewater systems. (There's one for drinking water systems too!) January 5, 2018 By Cassia Smith Asset Management, Small System O&M, Wastewater featured videos, water utility board, wastewater treatment 0 0 Comment Read More »
Pipe Wars Did you know there's a battle going on under our feet? A recent New York Times article unearths the lobbying war between two powerful industries, plastic and iron, over the estimated $300 billion that local governments will spend on water and sewer pipes over the next decade. To be sure, pipe material selection can be a complex process. Piping material choices can be influenced by a whole host of factors such as geography, soil characteristics, flow capacity needed, system pressures and more. Some utilities use a single type of piping, while others may use a wide variety depending on specific sites and needs. Moreover, municipal and utility leaders must then navigate through budget constraints and marketing hype as manufacturers fight for a piece of the infrastructure pie. It is no wonder that operators may need more information before making piping decisions. This webinar video from the Water Research Foundation about the State of the Science of Plastic Pipe provides case studies of how different utilities choose piping materials. The researchers involved in this report found that one of the most important considerations when choosing piping material is overall life cycle cost. Don't forget that there may be unique considerations to include in the decision-making process. For example, last month Bruce Macler from USEPA Region 9 wrote to us to let us know that "an interesting outcome of the recent California wildfires was that plastic water & sewer lines melted in some areas." Who would have thought? Interested in a no-nonsense listing of pros and cons of available piping materials? Check out this article. January 1, 2018 By Brenda Koenig Asset Management, Capacity Development, Small System O&M asset management, distribution, distribution o & m, distribution operation & maintenance, distribution operation and maintenance, distribution systems, financial management, infrastructure, pipe replacement, pipes, piping, piping materials, service mains, water mains 0 0 Comment Read More »
Featured Video: Liquid Assets Even if you're not into New Years' resolutions, the turn of the year can be a great time to reflect on where you've been and where you're going. Though I don't really make New Years' resolutions, I do like to take this time to think about my goals and strategies for achieving them. Then instead of testing my willpower against a resolution, I can focus on taking a small step toward a goal or even just thanking the people who have helped me along the way. And while this is a great time for personal reflection, organizations can benefit from asking these questions as well. A lot of questions facing water utilities are raised in this week's video. It covers a surprising number of topics in just 27 minutes, including crumbling underground infrastructure, the political factors that keep water rates too low to cover needed repairs, and the experiences of small, rural Minnesota communities grappling with infrastructure and sourcewater protection issues. Each issue is presented briefly but thoughtfully, with plenty of input from the local politicians and city officials who had to deal with these problems directly. Though the video was originally created for a PBS station in Minnesota, both drinking water and wastewater utilities from around the country will find a lot to agree with and consider for their own utilities. For more on rate-setting for small utilities, check out the RCAP handbook Formulate Great Rates and the EFCN rate dashboards. December 29, 2017 By Cassia Smith Asset Management, Business Mindset, Public Education aging infrastructure, asset management, featured videos, public education, rural utilities, small utilities, water main breaks 0 0 Comment Read More »