The Best YouTube Channels for Water & Wastewater Operators

Whether it’s to troubleshoot a treatment process, practice for a certification exam, or update your facility’s standard operating procedures, working as a small system water or wastewater operator means that you’re always learning something new to get the job done. Our mission at WaterOperator.org is to make sure you can easily find the best resources to manage and maintain your utility and reliably serve your community. A great way to bolster your knowledge at your own convenience is through training videos and webinar recordings. In this week’s blog post, we’d like to highlight our favorite YouTube channels so you can reference them when you need to develop a new skill, practice for a certification exam, or simply learn more about how to manage your system.

Certification:

American Water College
The American Water College features a variety of water and wastewater training videos that teach operators about operator math, treatment processes, operation and maintenance best practices, and utility management.

CAwastewater
This YouTube channel includes several wastewater math training videos for Grade 1 to Grade 5 operators of California.

Wastewater Dan
The training videos by Wastewater Dan teach operators how to calculate anything from annual energy costs to chemical oxygen demand (COD).

TheWaterSifu
Training videos on TheWaterSifu demonstrate water treatment math, laboratory techniques, and skills useful for the water treatment or distribution exam.

Treatment, Operations, and Maintenance:

Aquafix, Inc
The Aquafix YouTube channel hosts webinar recordings on wastewater treatment and process control. Please note that some of these videos may include promotions for Aquafix products.

Lagoons Do It Better
Wastewater operators can find webinar recordings on lagoon treatment and troubleshooting. The channel also features interviews with industry professionals. Please note that some of these videos may include promotional material for industry products.

R.C. Worst & Co., Inc.
On this YouTube channel, operators can learn about the selection and maintenance of valves, joints, switches, pumps, motors, and tanks involved in onsite wastewater treatment systems, packaged pumping systems, drinking water wells, and water treatment. Please note that some of these videos may include promotional material for industry products.

RCAP (Try their Vimeo and their YouTube channels.)
Both RCAP’s Vimeo and Youtube channels feature training videos and webinar recordings pertaining to water and wastewater treatment, operations and maintenance, monitoring, and utility management.

Wastewater Operations Channel
On this YouTube channel, Wastewater Operator Jon Kercher uploads educational videos filmed during the workday at his wastewater treatment facility. Videos range from troubleshooting treatment processes to learning about biosolids.

The Water Research Foundation
The Water Research Foundation includes webinar recordings of utility case studies, water research, and innovative technology.

Waterworks Training
Operators can watch brief training videos that demonstrate the installation and use of pipe fittings, restrainers, saddles, and couplings.

Utility Management:

Environmental Finance Center at UNC-Chapel Hill
This YouTube channel includes training videos and webinar recordings to teach systems how to improve their financial, technical, and managerial practices.

Smart Management for Small Water Systems
Small systems can use these webinar recordings to improve or develop asset management plans, start a capital improvement project, or better understand utility finances.

WaterOperator.org also maintains a YouTube channel of our own so you can find previously recorded webinars, interviews, and playlists that highlight our favorite videos. Check out the playlist Free Webinars for Water/ Wastewater Utilities to find other useful webinar recordings by organizations like the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

How are States Using Drinking Water Revolving Fund Set-Asides?

Question: What do the following small system programs have in common? 

• A small system electronic asset mapping project in Nevada
• Free consolidation assessments and facilitations in Texas
• New equipment to help with energy efficiency audits in Utah
• A licensed operator internship program in New Jersey

Answer: They were all funded with Drinking Water State Revolving Fund set-asides.

While there are many critical infrastructure needs the DWSRF program addresses across the nation, sometimes valuable non-infrastructure opportunities such as these can get lost in the shuffle. A new analysis from the EPA is helping shine a light on the wide variety of capacity-development projects funded via set-asides that have been implemented across the country. Taking a look at this analysis is particularly helpful if state-level decision-makers need ideas about how to use set-aside funding, or have questions about set-aside funding in general. 

Using data from state DWSRF plans and capacity development reports, the analysis can help answer these needs and questions. It shows that states are using set-aside funding in the following nine (9) areas: Training and Technical Assistance, Financial Management and Rate Studies, Source Water Protection, Program Implementation (Capacity Development), Water and Energy Efficiency, Partnerships, Data Management, and Emerging Contaminants. What is important to note here is that there is a large amount of flexibility inherent in the program, which is a great thing when you are looking for ways to support important capacity-building programs in your own backyard.

What exactly is a set-aside fund? According to the EPA, set-asides are portion of each state's annual capitalization grant that support water system capacity, operator certification, source water protection, and training/technical assistance to PWSs. Set-aside funding cannot be used for water system infrastructure projects. Instead, the set-asides support "activities necessary to ensure safe and affordable drinking water by: (1) providing states with flexible tools to assist water systems with training, technical assistance and pre-construction activities; and (2) extending and enhancing the impact of DWSRF funding by ensuring that water systems have the technical, managerial and financial capacity to obtain a loan and to effectively maintain their resources." States can take up to approximately 31 percent of their capitalization grant for set-aside funding. 

Each state can develop its own funding balance between infrastructure and non-infrastruture DWSRF loans, and this balance can change year-to-year. Finally, states should review their Public Water Supply System Program priorities on a regular basis to determine the effectiveness of set-aside usage. Happy planning!