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[Music] foreign [Music]
is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the term Mastermind was
originally written in Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich before that the
earliest documentation that we have of a mastermind group was Ben Franklin’s
group that he used to meet every single week in a Tavern that he called huntus
Nation there’s no doubt about it life is too short to do it alone and it’s not
very much fun to do it alone in nation I urge you to go to scalingup h2o.com and
find out if the rising tide Mastermind is right for you I’d love to have a 15-minute call with you to explain all
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you are right for the group go to scalinguph2o.com forward slash Mastermind
welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast the podcast where we scale up on our knowledge so we don’t scale up our
systems I’m your host Trace Blackmore a nation just the other day I was at an
event and somebody came up to me that listens to this podcast and said that we needed to change our tagline from
scaling up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems to the voice of the
water treatment industry and I thought that was just an amazing compliment so
thank you for sharing that with me I truly believe that you the scaling up
Nation are the voice of the water treatment industry and that voice is
united with this podcast it’s my hope that this podcast allows you to know
that you are among a nation of people that do what you do people that
experience variants the same things that you experience and it’s through that
nation and by the way that nation is growing each and every episode we’re
getting more and more people downloading the scaling up H2O podcast and we are
growing where on this globe people are downloading those episodes so thank you
for all of our new listeners out there and we have those new listeners because
of the voice because of you because you
are sharing to other industrial water treatment professionals that there is a
podcast out there for them and it’s my hope that you feel connected to a tribe
as I just mentioned that tribe is called the scaling up nation and together we
are making water issues disappear because we are learning more about water
what our options are to use it more efficiently
how we can make sure we’re making ourselves the best self that we can be
so we are able to absorb all of this new information as we’re learning how we can
be better at enhancing the ways that we use water and of course understanding
that it’s our job to make sure this valuable resource is always available
for us to use because when we’re out of it or if we can’t use it a lot of things
don’t matter anymore in fact that is most things and if we were to look at
Water there is the same amount of water that is on this planet right now as
there was millions of years ago but as we know water is very differently used
today as it was Millions of years ago we know that water will recycle itself but
we also know because we are using water a lot more quickly than we have used in
the past it’s not able to clean itself quickly enough so that leaves us in the
water treatment industry a challenge to how do we use water where it is and
reuse that to make sure that water is being as efficient as it possibly could
and we are keeping it in the same place for as long as we can if this job wasn’t
hard enough boy that is a challenge and today we are going to talk about that
very thing and we’re going to interview the executive director of an organization that’s doing that each and
every day here’s the interview [Music] my lab partner is Pat sinacropy
executive director of water reuse welcome Pat thank you it’s great to be
with you well I was hoping that you would mind telling the scaling up Nation
a bit about yourself well I’m the executive director of the
water reuse Association I’ve been with the association for five years
um and prior to coming on board as executive director I was legislative
director for three water organizations the National Association of Clean Water agencies which represents the municipal
Wastewater sector under the Clean Water Act the water environment Federation and
prior to that I worked with the rural community Assistance programs so I had a
deep background in helping the water sector to achieve their goals of clean
and Safe Water I’m curious why did you decide to get in the world of water
well you know as everything career choices to some extent you choose career
and to some extent the career chooses you and I think it was a little bit of
both I was with the Clinton Administration where I did a lot of policy work with respect to Smart cities
sustainable cities livable communities and after that I became as I mentioned
involved with the rural community Assistance programs which provide technical assistance to Water and
Wastewater Utilities in very small communities and I’ve always had an
interest in policies and advocacy around the importance of providing resources to
communities to ensure a good quality of life for the residents so you know when
it’s often said in our in the water field when you become a water geek
you’re always a water geek because you fall in love with with the challenges that the issues represent but more so
the people it’s a great sector great people and I just you know from there just continued on the path I suppose
I have found all of that to be true for myself as well we talked about water
reuse what is that organization and what should our members know about it well
the water reuse Association it’s a 30 year old plus organization originally
founded in California to represent the municipal community and the business
Community involved in providing recycled water for a variety of applications I
would say when the organization began in 1990 a lot of the focus and the use of
recycled water was for irrigation and agricultural cultivation and then eventually moved
and expanded to broader uses to include potable drinking water in 2000 the
association became a National Association and we’ve been operating at
a national scale since that time we provide advocacy policy see support
educational support communication support for our members
who are engaged in water Recycling and for the broader public to learn more
about water reuse and how it can help them face their water fresh water
challenges so we have about 450 members we represent municipalities
businesses and institutions that include universities state government federal
government so we are a fairly broad organization that represents many
interests as the executive director what is your day-to-day like oh dear well my
day-to-day busy some of my day-to-day is includes speaking with media because we
take very seriously our educational role and our public Outreach role so this is
a we love speaking with with the media about water recycling I’m speaking with
our members to check in and see how they’re doing I’m managing an association so that requires a lot of
oversight of our programming I try to provide staff with support in the work
that they’re doing and also make sure that we are operating efficiently as a
as an association so I’m on Capitol Hill I talk to members on Capitol Hill I
talked to Federal agency officials about policies funding that the community
needs so a whole variety of of Things fill up my days we have the same amount of water today
that we had many many years ago of course since we all started using water
same amount but we’re now using it very differently we’re using more of it more
often and I know that’s where you get involved and there’s so many ways to make sure we’re recycling water properly
there’s older Technologies newer Technologies I was hoping you could tell the scaling up Nation a little bit about
what some of the options are when it comes to water reuse well there are a wide variety of
beneficial applications for the use of recycled water as I mentioned earlier
Agricultural and irrigation purposes it was the case and and we’re moving away
from this but I think we’ll we’ll get back to it that a large portion of the
sector would pipe recycled effluent to farm fields or golf courses to help
provide non-potable water to crops and large irrigation Fields now we’re seeing
a lot more variety in the uses to include Advanced manufacturing
applications cooling for large facilities we’re seeing the food and
beverage industry and other industries that use water for their processes use
more recycled water and we’re also seeing I think I would say the two latest developments of in the last five
ten years has been a more dominant focus on using recycled water for potable
Supply and using on-site systems to maintain the water on site at facilities
and use it for things like toilet flushing as I mentioned cooling those
are some of the more direct applications the other thing we’re seeing is storm
water capture and reuse and you know we think about water as something that
comes through a pipe and we use it for whatever we need in a tap we turn on the tap we use it for a variety of of
purposes but we’re also seeing more interest in capturing rain water and storm water and
I’d say two main drivers for that one in the west when where rainfall can be
scarce when it happens you want to be able to capture it and make the greatest use of it and that often is capturing it
and reusing it for cooling or irrigation and then second the second driver is
water quality often storm water and very built up areas will fall to Pavement
surfaces collect a lot of contaminants and run off into surface water bodies
that end up being polluted by the contaminants that the storm water is conveying into those systems so we’re
seeing more interest interest growing on the part of urban environments or
municipalities located in areas where water quality is becoming a problem
turning toward storm water capture and reuse what are some of the technologies that
are available to us for water reuse oh a variety of of Technologies we have
I think the one that is has been most popular is membrane filtration membrane
filtration technology reverse osmosis pulls out a lot of constituents that are
in the water supply but we’re also seeing new emerging technologies that
can treat the water just as cleanly as membrane and that includes biological
activated carb infiltration more and more communities are turning and
thinking about biological activated carb infiltration especially communities that
can’t manage the concentrate that is a byproduct of reverse osmosis and
membrane technology so we’re seeing more Technologies come onto the market different Technologies different
treatment systems you can use biological activated carbon filtration with ozone
prior to sending the water through the the filter so there you know we’re
seeing adjustments to the treatment process and then more advancements in
the filtration technology itself yeah I want to bring light to your
website lots of videos some are very easy to understand on a lot of the
technologies that you just mentioned and you all have put together a fantastic resource that if somebody wants to learn
more about what they can do it’s right there at their fingertips well thank you thanks for saying that we work hard on
on maintaining the website we have a great communications director whom you’ve worked with already Ben
glickstein he does a great job of maintaining our website you know so much of what we do now is on online on the
web people do Google searches all the time want to know what’s available how
to research information and we try to be a resource for folks who are new to the industry the general public as well as
for professionals who have been doing this for a long time but may not know a
lot about recycling water recycling so appreciate you noting that absolutely
what are some success stories that you can share I know you work with companies you work with individuals what are some
success stories that your organization has had with them well one of the most
recent success story exciting success story is watching the Orange County
groundwater replenishment system come online and complete its final Expansion
Project which they celebrated just this past Friday in Orange County California
this is a system that is providing now 130 million gallons a day to Residents
in Southern California it’s providing pure recycled water as good as any
purified water you would get in a bottle off the store shelf it’s a project that
has been in the making for kind say over 20 years started as a pilot project
began at a small I think 10 MGD scale
expanded to medium GD and now fully expanded at 130 MGD of pure water a day
it’s the world’s largest indirect potable reuse facility and it’s right
here in the United States in Southern California so we’re very excited about that we’re excited that one of our
important members in El Paso Texas will be unveiling and I think launching in
2025 their direct potable reuse facility which will remove the environmental
barrier and just send recycled effluent from the treatment wastewater treatment facility to the drinking water
distribution and beyond that I would say the adoption of on-site treatment
systems at scale we’re seeing a lot of neighborhoods a lot of large city
neighborhoods adopting on-site recycling systems that allow them to keep water on
site not not put a lot of that volume on on the Aging infrastructure that we so
often confront and enable Developers businesses to be in a little more
control over the water supply that they need if you had to estimate how many gallons
you were putting back what would you think that number might be oh geez oh you stomped me on that one
nationally I think we’re probably at eight to ten percent wow and I think the
number is about 300 billion gallons of water is used every day in the U.S moved
around somehow so 30 million gallons it’s not a small number yeah 300 what is
that 10 10 is not a small number I guess I would be 3 billion we had a guess not
too long ago episode 303 and he brought our attention to replenishing groundwater Supply just as you just did
I don’t think a lot of people think about it we take the groundwater we use
it and then it never goes back and eventually it’s not going to be there for us you mentioned some things that
you’re working with but are there additional items that you want our audience to know about that issue well
that’s a very good point you raise managed Aquifer recharge is becoming
more and more important and will become more and more important certainly in the
Ogallala water aquifer and in the Imperial Basin of California the Bread
Basket for the country we are seeing rapid deterioration of groundwater supplies
and it is exactly because as you say we sort of take for granted that when the
rain comes it falls to the ground and somehow in the back of our mind when we
were school children we learned about the water table and the underground water that’s about 10 15 30 50 feet
however many feet underground it is and if you drill far enough you’ll find water well
you know that’s no longer something we can take for granted because of the over
pumping that has occurred and because in places where the rainfall was abundant
that’s no longer the case so I think managed Aquifer recharge is going to be
and is becoming a much more acceptable and utilized process for addressing
water shortages and essentially managed aquifer recharges recycled water putting
highly advanced advanced treated water into the ground restoring those those
aquifer supplies so it’s an important approach to water recycling
you were recently in my hometown of Atlanta can you tell us about the conference that recently was had oh we
had a great time Atlanta is a great City I love Atlanta we have an annual Symposium it occurs in
March every year we this year we held it in Atlanta and brought together close to
800 water professionals from around the country for three days worth of learning
talking about the latest advancements in in water recycling we have an annual
Symposium as I said every year next year next march it’s in Denver we’ll be going to Denver we’re excited about that but
Atlanta was great we were at the downtown Marriott Marquis it was a terrific hotel in a great part of town
and we had we attended the aquarium for an evening isn’t that a great place it’s a great
place great place lots of fun beautiful fish large I think it’s the world’s
largest aquarium I’m not sure if that when it was built it was I’m not sure if it still is yeah well they did a great
job hosting us and Atlanta has some great showcase exam samples of recycling
the Mercedes-Benz facility uses the stadium uses an on-site system our
members visited the Piedmont Hospital which is coming online this year it’s showcasing a recycled water system the
aquarium uses an on-site recycled water system there’s a lot of recycling going on in Georgia so we were really pleased
that we could bring the Symposium to Georgia and the southeast what can we expect from next year’s
symposium well next year we’re going to as I said we’re going to be in Denver mile high
city in the middle of the Colorado River of course we’ll be spending a lot of time talking about what’s happening in
the Colorado River Basin what the seven Basin states are doing to try to extend
that Resource as much as possible so I think it’s going to be a good a great
few days in Denver of course it’s ski season so a lot of folks will be coming out to take advantage of the great Rocky
Mountain ski areas and I encourage them to do so I’m looking forward to that but I think it’s going to be a fun time
I’m sure you’re looking for papers and abstracts if people are listening and
want to submit what should they do well come to our website we should be unveiling our call for we’ll be
Distributing our call for abstracts in June we’ll be posting it on our website
and we invite water professionals everywhere to submit an abstract and and
be part of the discussions uh in Denver Pat you have an open mic to 20 000
industrial water Traders what do you want them to know I want them to know that water recycling
can solve their water issues whatever they are it may not always be the Silver
Bullet but it is an essential ingredient in the water portfolio strategy that
they’re adopting for their water needs it provides a safe secure reliable
source of water and the technology these days are such that they produce a very
high quality pure very pure product so if they haven’t already penciled out
and mapped out a water recycling project for their facility they they really do need to do so and come to the water
reuse association’s website come to the water reuse Association to join and
become part of the water reuse family and be part of the solution
we will make sure to have all of those links on our show notes page so people can easily find that well I appreciate
you giving us this time and speaking with you today on the podcast it sounds like your listeners come from a variety
of different Industries one important thing we are looking at is advocating in
Congress for an industrial reuse tax credit that will be targeted for
Industries looking to adopt water recycling practices so if they want to
learn more about that they can come to our website waterreuse.org and learn more about the
industrial tax credit campaign that we we’re about to Launch well Pat I want to thank you so much for
coming on the scaling up H2O podcast and educating our members on a water reuse
both the organization and making sure that we’re putting the water we use to
the best use possible well thank you very much it’s been a pleasure [Music]
Nation I hope you are thinking about water in so many different ways and
you’re thinking how you can help this situation of course you can get a lot of
that information from water reuse and we will have links directly to that on our
show notes page one of the things we became very aware of in episode 303 with
Dr Rakesh was we are not replenishing the groundwater table as quick as we
need to and just imagine someday in the very near future it could be possible
that that water table that we always rely on won’t be there so Nation we are
in the perfect situation to help with that issue and so many more so I urge
you to learn what you can do for yourself and for for your customers to
bring this information together with them so we can continue to impact the
most incredible issue that we face on this planet
on a lighter note I want to tell you about one of the things that I look
forward to every quarter and I’m talking about the Hang our next hang is going to
be July 13th and if you’ve never been on a hang you are missing out a hang
started during covid where we just miss seeing each other and it has morphed into water treaters coming together to
talk about things just like we talked about on this very episode but also to
network to meet each other to meet somebody that will answer a question
that you haven’t even thought of yet when I think of all the questions that
I’ve asked people in my water treatment career I had to meet them first to know
that I could use them as a resource to get the answer and that’s what the Hang is the Hang is meant to bring people in
our industry together so we can Network so we can make our
industry better so to find out more about the Hang go to scalingup h2o.com
forward slash hang that’s h-a-n-g and again one more time it’s
going to be on July 13th at 6 00 PM Eastern Standard Time I can’t wait to
see you on the next hang here are a few things that you may want
to add to your calendar the International Water Association is having their International Conference on
eco Technologies for wastewater treatment in Spain June 26 through 29th
this event aims to discuss the latest Cutting Edge Eco Technologies for a sustainable transition in wastewater
treatment if this is something that interests you you can find out more by going to our show events page also
October 22nd through 25th the association of Metropolitan water agencies is having their executive
management conference in Coronado California this is your opportunity to
network with peers to hear the latest thinking on water utility management practices and Regulatory and legislative
developments affecting the water sector Nation for all of these and more you
don’t have to memorize them you don’t have to take your hands off off the wheel to take notes by all means never
do that while listening to this podcast you can simply go to scalingup h2o.com
and there is everything that we talked about on this episode and every other
episode right there for your viewing pleasure there are so many people that
are using the scaling up H2O website as their place to start their Learning
Journey we have well over 300 episodes of content that we have curated so it’s
easy for you to start your Learning Journey it’s my hope that you go to
scalingup h2o.com today and learn about whatever it is you want to start your
journey on Nation you know learning is a journey and our captain for navigating
us week to week on our Learning Journey is James MC Donald
hello and welcome to the periodic water table with James where we think and learn about water chemistry drop by drop
please use your week to search online ask your colleagues or even pick up a
book to learn more about each week’s periodic water table topic if you do at
the end of the year you’ll be 52 water chemistry smarter so let’s raise the water table of
knowledge together and get started today’s topic is
film forming amines or FFA what are film forming it means
within which systems are they used and for what concentrations are recommended for film
forming a means how are they first dosed to a system what could be the impact if not properly
dosed are film forming a means just a single chemical formula or are there multiple
film forming amines available can you test for film forming amines
are there any possible negative impacts upon applying a film forming a mean to a system
how do today’s film forming a means compare to those of yesteryear when would film forming amines be used
in place of other traditional and duster water chemicals remember knowledge is power and taking
the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a force to be reckoned with
be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag watertable 23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look
forward to learning more from you thank you James filming the means was
one of the topics that I think eluded a lot of people and when we first started
the podcast this was way back in June of 2019 so we had about two years under our
belt at that time but I knew that people had a lot of questions about filming
amines because they told me they had those questions so I had meridi kabari
expert on filming amines come and talk with us about all things filming a means
so if you want to learn even more about filming a means you can look at episode
89 90 and 91 all about filming amines
and that might answer some of the questions that James just challenged us
with so once again thank you James and thank you meredy for making this
challenge Maybe be a little bit easier Scout up Nation we’re going to have a brand new episode for you next week as
we always do until then try to help us have The Next Episode by going to
scaling up h2o.com and letting us know what you want us to talk about any and
all ideas are welcome and we have a show because you help us have a show so let
us know what you want to hear and that will help us with our schedule if anybody watches dirty jobs with Mike
Rowe he asks each and every viewer on each and every episode to help them find
the next job a nation has always been my fear that after 10 episodes of this podcast I was going to run out of ideas
and you make it so that is not the case I want to thank you for that and again
my gift for you is to have a new episode each and every week have a great folks
[Music] Skyline Nation you asked for it and it
is here so many of you are taking the certified water technologist examination
and you’re wanting to get better information on how to better answer the
mock exam now this is the exam that you get when you sign up for the cwt exam
well I have heard your request and I’ve done exactly that I have recorded a
class that has exactly what you’ve been asking for it is me answering each one
of the questions and letting you know why I chose certain answers and of
course everybody wants me to do math and I do all the math on the mock exam so
you can see how to get the right answer and I hope this is something that will help build your confidence so you can
get your certification you can go scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep
once again that’s scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep get out there and
get your certification today