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[Music]
today’s episode is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the rising tide Mastermind is one of my favorite
things that I look forward to each and every week because I get to see people
that have my best interest in mind I know this because I have their best
interest in mind and when you get people together in a room like that you can
just imagine how people want to help other people if this sounds like
something you want to learn more about go to scaling up h2o.com
Mastermind welcome to scaling up H2O the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems my name
is Trace Blackmore The Host host of the most awesome water treatment podcast out
there scaling up H2O thanks for being a member of the scaling up nation and
Nation if this is not on your calendar this is something that you need to put
on your calendar and I think every holiday where we celebrate what it is that we do or what we do it with I mean
water you need to celebrate it our job can be kind of hard sometimes and and we
need opportunities to just take a step back and celebrate with each other and
you know you are celebrating with other members of the scaling up Nation so if this is not on your calendar go ahead
and mark your calendar for World water day that is March
22nd that is coming up very soon and we get to celebrate World water day
together World water day is always held on on March 22nd and it’s all about
accelerating change to solve the world Water Crisis and something we do each
and every year is we celebrate World Visions Global 6K and I say celebrate
that’s probably not the right word but we do observe on May 18th we all do a
global 6K together I’m going to do a show when we talk about world water day
on the global 6K but until then if you want more information you can go to scaling up2.com
6K and it’s all about how do we bring water to communities so they can enhance
the communities instead of walking 6 kilomet to go get water so we’re going
to have more information in an upcoming episode around that but in the meantime go ahead and put two dates on your
calendar that’s March 22nd for World water Day and May 18th for the global 6K
and it’s my hope that you join team scaling up where we can all walk run
crawl whatever you want to do wherever you are this year on May 18th for the
global 6K for water also coming up on April 11 it’s our second hang of the
year and I know what you’re thinking trace the Hang is just a zoom call it’s
just a video conference and I don’t want to go to another another video
conference well folks this is the video conference that you want to go to for a
couple reasons one it’s at 6: p.m. eastern time it starts exactly at 600
p.m. eastern time and it ends exactly at 700 p.m. eastern time so it doesn’t take
a lot of time it’s not one of those calls that you don’t know when you’re going to get off you know when you’re going to start you know when you’re
going to end and in that hour it is going to be action-packed I’m going to let you know a couple things about
what’s going on in our industry and then I’m quickly going to get you into a
breakout room where you get to meet people in this industry and folks this
is an invaluable opportunity think about who you know in this industry that can
solve whatever problem you are currently having or maybe you are having in the future you can’t know enough people when
you get to meet new people that is a great opportunity and we don’t always
have those opportunities present themselves in our day-to-day so that is
what the Hang is all about to bring networking to you right where you are
for just one short hour so you will get to meet people that are on the call on
the video conference I’ll give you a few things to talk about but you will get to know people that will help you with
future issues I have heard so many success stories where people people have
met somebody they then had an issue with say a water softener and they met
somebody who just knew so much about water softeners now they didn’t call them first they called some other people
everything they tried would not work he figured okay I met this new guy a month or so ago on this hang call he said I
could call him that was the whole premise of the Hang Trace told me to call him I’m going to call him well he
called him and he asked him questions that he had never considered before and
because of how he asked the questions the expert was able to lead him to a
solution it was something he never thought of it was something that other people never thought of and it was the
right answer and it fixed it right there it impressed the customer he now left
that with more knowledge and he would have never gotten there at least not as easily if he did not attend the hang I’m
sure if we had an attorney that would sample this show they would say I’d have to put a disclaimer not all experiences
are the same some experiences may vary your experience may be different from the one described on the scaling up H2O
podcast but even so you are going to meet people that you didn’t know before
and folks it happened so many times people just like sharing and helping
within this industry don’t you want to know more people in this industry sure you do go to scaling up h2o.com
hang I will see you on April 11th at 6:00 p.m. Eastern and I will introduce
you to everybody that’s on that call something else coming up is the Pennsylvania brownfields conference and
that’s March 25th through 27th in State College Pennsylvania and this is all
about the basics of Pennsylvania’s brownfields program and how to address
abandoned and dilapidated buildings and what to do with pasas and mitigating the
problems with abandoned and dilapidated buildings so if you are in the state college area you might want to check
this conference out and this is put on by the engineer Society of Western Pennsylvania they are the same great
folks that put on the International Water conference and I just had such a
great time at the conference and working with them last year I can only imagine
how great this conference will be we’ll have all that information on our show notes page as well as the International
Trade Fair for Wastewater technology that is taking place in Munich Germany
May 13th through 17th and then finally the association for professional and
infectious control and epidemiology professionals annual conference is taking place June 3rd through 5th in San
Antonio Texas I have to say San Antonio Texas is a great convention Town they’ve
got that Canal Walk there it is just amazing you can walk all up and down the
canal go through the entire downtown area and never get into traffic there’s
restaurants there’s all sorts of things to do there if you ever have the opportunity to go to a conference in San
Antonio I would do it just for the Riverwalk system that’s there but of course you’ve got this great conference
coming up and we’re going to have all the information that you need to know about that conference and many more that
I didn’t even mention today by going to scaling up h2o.com and you can go over
to our events page scaleup Nation one of the conferences you may have met our
next guest at was the awt The Association of water Technologies conference in Vancouver she was a
speaker there and her name is CNA salanki you’re going to love this
interview you here it is [Music] folks my lab partner today is kulna
salanki president and CEO of the environmental operator certification
program colna welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast thank you it’s wonderful to
be here well we are excited about having you here and we’ve done a couple of
episodes about how people should look at social media and making sure that they
have a presence and people feel that they know you on social media because whenever somebody wants to introduce
themselves to somebody probably the first thing they do is go out and look at their social media accounts you do a
fabulous job at that you are skiing you are going on trips and you were talking
water every step of the way I think you need to teach a class on social media
thank you I didn’t know I was that great well maybe I’m just so poor and that’s
the that’s the reference of that I’ve got a great team that makes me look a lot better that I than I am I’m curious
what are some of the things that you try to do when when you post with social media what’s the message that you’re
trying to to center around I think a lot of things are that I post and I talk
about on social media things that are near and dear to me and there are things that I’m passionate about so you’ll
definitely see things related to my work in the water Wastewater industry but you
certainly see information related to say sleep or diet or exercise because I
think these are really important components in terms of a person’s well-being and so they’ll be it it
sometimes it can be a little bit out there in terms of it’s like oh she’s talking about environmental operators
today and she’s talking about her conference and then next thing it’ll be something about going paddling or or
going skiing I mean it’s just all related to walk water one’s Frozen and one isn’t but just very much related to
this is an industry I’m very passionate about I will say I loved your conference
postings because it you were bringing the entire listening audience or whoever
was watching your social media post into those conferences we were very fortunate
I mean we have we work with a really great team for the AV aspect and so our
goal it was sort of precipitated by the co 19 pandemic and and uh restrictions
with regards to Gatherings and so we turned it into a hybrid conference in
2020 and then just subsequent to that it it like people would say so are you
going to have it as a a hybrid conference in perpetuity it’s like you know the ship has sailed on that I think
we have to and I’ve been in um involved with conferences where they’re almost
always hybrid now and very often and the online audience is actually larger than
the in-person audience and I think it’s it’s that opportunity that we want to
give to people to get their education to get information about the industry and
we focus mainly on water Wastewater and then leadership as well we want people to be able to access that information
either in person or from wherever they wish to do so so we had people attending from Kenya from the Caribbean from
Europe and just making it accessible as possible because you know what we have
the technology so why not I love that well before we go any further let’s make
sure the scaling up Nation gets properly introduced to you col do you mind
sharing with the nation a bit about yourself okay so I’ve been at the
environmental operator certification program since 2016 I’m very passionate about the work
that we do and I’ll tell you a little bit about the work that we do here we
classify Water and Wastewater facilities and then we also certify the environmental operators who work there
and in terms of the environmental operators I think they are some of the
most unrecognized and unappreciated people out there I mean we just we turn
on our tops and we get drinking water we flush our toilets and it’s the waste
goes away and it’s all almost like magic but there are people who make this
happen and the main people who make this happen are our environmental operators
so there’s that one part of it it’s like magic that this all just happens and we don’t always know but also the other
thing I find out I find is that this career it’s almost like the world’s best
kept secret and very few people know about this and that’s one of the things that we’re trying to change because it’s
a career with lots of opportunities you can work in anywhere in Canada anywhere
in North America anywhere around the world because just about everywhere you need people to take care of you drinking
water and your Wastewater management well let’s explore that a little bit because we are all trying to
find the next generation of our Workforce and people are trying to
figure out what to do what’s some suggestions that you have to our audience for our audience that they
should be doing to find that next worker well one of the things about this career
as I should also mention is it is pretty well Recession Proof I mean no matter
what the state of the economy is there’ll always be a need for environmental operators something that
I’m really excited about in terms of finding out more about the profession and then finding about options on how to
join the profession is we started up a new website and it’s called water
geek.com you’ll find out information about well what what is it that these operators do so we’ve got some little
short videos because we found out people don’t like really long pedantic videos
so there’s short videos about a minute minute and a half each that talk about that actually interview operators on
their on their jobs so it’s it’s called our operators on the job video series so that’s one aspect in terms of first of
all who are these people what do they do and then there’s information at water.ca.gov also on if you are
interested in becoming an operator how do you become one so that’s one of the projects that we’ve been involved with
and I’m really excited about we’re getting a lot of traffic and I think part of the reason for really trying to
kind of promote this career is because one of our first conferences so we had our first conference in 2018 and at that
conference there were 300 people in the room and so I asked everyone to stand up and then I said any one who is not an
operator please sit down and maybe five people sat down the rest of the people were still standing up and then I asked
the group I said any one of you that decided to become an operator when you left High School remain standing
everyone else please sit down there were three people that remained standing so it for me it just
Illustrated the that component with regards to people don’t know about this career high school students don’t know
about this career and um this is going back a little bit do did I want did I
know what I wanted to be when I finished high school I did not it’s been a bit of a it’s been a bit of a circuitous
journey and so we’re telling people hey you know maybe you should consider this
and and then sometimes you get people saying well what if I don’t like the job
well there’s so many different Avenues in terms of what you can do also my
premise is knowledge is never wasted and whatever you learn in this program program you can probably apply it
elsewhere and to give you an idea in terms of my dedication to the industry I
encourage my son to go through the program and he’s in the program right now at the BC Institute of Technology
and uh he just started the program in September I was fortunate my father was in this industry so I always knew about
it but when it was time to step up and become a member of this industry I didn’t think it was a real job because I
always knew about it my father assured me that it was and here I am if there’s
somebody today that’s listening and says I want to be part of letting the high
schoolers know that this is a potential career opportunity for them what can
they do I really would recommend having a look at our site I know that it’s pertinent to British Colombia and Yukon
but it does in terms of operator jobs environmental operator jobs they’re pretty consistent around North America
and internationally if you go to water
geek.com working in water treatment in water distribution in Wastewater collection in wastewater treatment so
you get a really good account of who they these people are and what their day-to-day jobs entail there got nothing
about me and there at all it’s actually people who are certified environmental operators who are members of the EOC P
we basically hired a videographer to follow them around and put together these videos one of the things your
organization puts out is the operator Digest Magazine which is very well done
can you tell the scaling up Nation a bit about that thank you so it’s a quarterly magazine and it’s been around for a
while I think it was initially interestingly I think it was started off
probably in the 70s or so but it was actually called the scum line at that
time oh my goodness I’m glad you changed the name yes and then it would get published sort of intermittently and
when I joined the eocp that was one of my goals it’s like let’s really make
this into a more professional magazine let’s have scheduled dates and hired a
graphic designer who I had worked with before it’s also an aspect of my job that I really like in terms of I’m a bit
of a geek at heart and so I get to go visit New facilities and then I write
about them and there are some regular columns there’s always uh who’s on the
Move column that is I think it’s really important because then people get to see well I start off as an operator but
these are other opportunities that could be available to me because these who’s on the move is usually focused on an
operator who’s moved up or moved around and sometimes worked on an international level and then we also have an operator
profile and that I think is really interesting I’ve always found them very interesting to read because it just
shows that you know we focus on water Wastewater operators and they
acknowledge which individuals have been important in their career Journey but one of the things they always talk about
that I find just just really heartening is how they always talk about how they
love their work and so I think that’s a really good thing for people to read if they’re
think about this as a career option this is operators in their own words talking about their careers and then we always
focus a plant profile so that’s something that I write about usually our one of our former Engineers used to
write about it too and we sort of take turns but usually last little while because I’ve been traveling for meetings
and conferences and so on I’ll try to fit in a facility close to where I’m
where I’m going to be staying or visiting and then go visit that facility so we’ve got some amazing work going on
on with some really stateof the-art facilities that have been newly commissioned around British Columbia and
Yukon if there’s a listener today that has just heard the acronym eocp can you
tell us a little bit more about your organization so it’s an interesting organization and it g really gives
credit to the people in the industry from years ago so the organization was
actually formed in 1966 by some was water operators who
felt that there needed to be some standards with regards to classification of facilities and also training of
operators so they formed this organization before there were any regulations requiring this so it’s a
little bit shocking that this organization was formed in 1966 it was the first organization in Canada and it
wasn’t until 1993 that there were first regulations related to wastewater treatment and even
more shocking is that there weren’t any regulations related to water until 2003
so we’re a unique organization in terms of being the first that was formed
before there were any regulations but also very unique in the sense I think we may be one of two only in North America
where we work with government but we’re actually not part of government and because when the regulations came about
in 1993 and 2003 the government said well there’s an organization doing this
work in this space so why don’t we just name this organization in the regulations as being responsible for
facility classification and operator certification so we work very closely with with government but we are not part
of government something that I find fascinating and I wish more
organizations did it is you put out a lot of material to help train the people
that are going to be making future laws in things that they need to know about
the laws that they are making why did you decide to do that and what’s your process to actually get that to the
people that need to read it so I would say one of the ones that I can think about is specifically with regards to
backflow prevention so in in that in that situation what it is it’s it’s a
it’s in the public interest that there needs to be better monitoring of this
and and this is what really guides us in a lot of the work with that we do is
what’s in the public interest so we usually have a task force that looks at new certifications should we be
considering new certifications what’s in the public interest and usually starts up with a list of several different
potential certifications and we as a task force the task force comprises of Staff as well as board
directors and last year the decision was you know what we really need to focus on
backflow prevention and crosson action control because there it it is in the public interest there’s a risk to the
public and not enough is being done in this area so one of the other things
that we’ve done some work on is with regards to Emergency Response related to
water Wastewater facilities because it seems like we’re sometimes just flying by the seat of our pants I’ll give you
an example of November 2021 when the atmospheric River hit this
town of me city of mar it and what happened there was there’s no emergency
response teams it’s literally as said fly by the seat of our pants and so the
city of Meritt there the chief administrative officer called up the chief administrative officer in the city
of cam loops and said send help our facilities are flooded we have no
wastewater treatment a water distribution system is affected and the CEO in Cam Loop said well what do you
need and and the fellow from Meritt said we don’t know send everything and
anything you can spare and then a couple of other groups provided some assistance
as well and you know with climate change and you know the severity of extreme
weather events and the frequency of extreme weather events we need to have something in place so one of our biggest
projects was with regards to going out and doing a debrief with the people who
are in Merit as well as the people in Colona Who provided support in terms of
we can’t keep on functioning like this we need to have emergency response teams
and so that is a proposal that we’ve made to government that we need to have and we’ve identified seven locations
around the province and each location would have an emergency response team and a trailer outfitted with equipment
that is necessary for providing emergency response so that’s been a bit of an uphill battle it made sense to us
we thought it was a great idea but government’s of course going well we don’t know if we want to spend that kind of money I don’t think it’s that
exorbitant in terms of the costs involved but that is something where we actually have a really amazing video
that outlines what the problem is what the solutions are most of our listeners are in the
states and there are lots of I guess sister organizations in the states that are are doing similar things if one of
our members or one of our listeners is listening and they are members to one of these associations what advice would you give
them to make sure that uh they are doing the same work that you’re doing getting
the right information to the legislators because I can’t tell you how many things
that have been passed that I can think of where the people making the laws had no clue what they were making the laws
on and had a profession been involved it would have been better for everybody I think one of the key
things is like you know with the video that we created I did the voiceover for that but all the people that we
interview are people who are literally boots on the ground people with expertise so I think it’s really
important to make sure that the people with the expertise are actually talking
about what the problems are and what the possible solutions are I think that’s a key component we don’t need all of these
Consultants kind of at the higher level sort of giving information and advice because they’re not the ones
experiencing this I mean we had one operator at one point when he was
talking about the wastewater treatment facility the drain in the wastewater
treatment facility was at a lower level than the river and so he actually
stripped down to suunday and got in there and it’s it’s November it’s cold
and BAS basically put in this almost like a ball stop into the floor drain to
stop the water coming up so I mean just some of those things I mean I don’t have
experience with that but he does and so really talking to people about what the
problems are what the possible solutions are I think that’s really important to get those people involved because
otherwise it’s just a theoretical exercise that’s great advice you mentioned backflow prevention and if
you’re not involved with that that’s probably something that you’re required
to certify each and every year that you have something maybe in some places you don’t even have to do that but I thought
we could start the conversation around backflow prevention what exactly is it
and why is it so important well when you think about backflow it’s basically the reverse flow
of undesirable materials into a water system so you could have water like it’s
perfectly safe coming from the water treatment facility but if there’s a backflow event then you’ve got the
potential of chemicals getting in i’ say chemicals it could be anything else getting into the system that is
basically going to be contaminating the drinking water and there have been many many many examples of that I can give
you some examples here and it’s very often as a result of people kind of
turning on their CHS and kind of noticing oh the water is blue why is the
water blue or the water smells terrible or the water tastes terrible and really it’s actually quite
worrisome that some of these incidents still continue happening and part of it is because in most jurisdictions I know
in British Colombia and Yukon there is no legislation saying you have to have
backflow prevention devices in place to make sure this doesn’t doesn’t happen with a lot of and it’s basically almost
on a voluntary basis and some cities have bylaws that say you need to have
these systems in place but in general the certification and the examination
and certification programs are not really that rigid and what’s also more
in a way almost more important is that these systems are sometimes out there because say say if a new facility is
being constructed say well you need to have a backflow prevention device in place but then just putting in a device
alone is not enough you’ve got to make sure that it’s tested annually repaired
if necessary and the testing and repairing needs to be done with by someone who has the training who has
written the exam and who is certified in that area because it it’s not something
that someone can just walk off the street and take care of properly and the municipality that I’m
located in uh around Atlanta Georgia all commercial facilities are required to
have backflow prevention devices but not on residential and that is where a lot of
the problems occur because say for instance I mean say if I’m I’m applying I don’t have a perfect laun it’s defly
not me but say if I if I was applying say Weeden feed for instance and you can
get Weeden feed like you get some of those containers where you can just attach your hose to the 4 lit container
of pesticide and then you’re spraying that all of a sudden there is a pressure
drop in the system because say someone has a broken water line so instead of
the water going from the municipal system into your container and spraying
out onto the lawn all of a sudden you’re going to have a problem with water being
sucked out from your line including the pesticide and getting into the municipal
system so that is definitely one kind of um uh condition where it’s basically
like back siphonage where all a sudden instead of water going in One Direction it’s going in the other direction and
that is where the backflow prevention device is so important because it it stops the flow in Reverse there’s flow
only in One Direction so not only do we need the device it needs to be tested on a
regular basis what should that regular basis be and how do they test so I used
to run a food manufacturing company and I had a backflow prevention device in the facility and it was mandatory and
this is the other thing is a lot of municipalities don’t have this so it was mandatory that the backflow prevention
device is tested annually and so it needs to be tested and someone comes in and makees sure that the valves are all
working properly and that flow is just happening in One Direction occasionally I think it was year two or three they
came by and said you need a few parts and basically came in and replac the part so that it was working but so it
was first of all that I was required to have this secondly that it was tested and maintained on a regular basis now
one of the things that we find is so there’s that initial aspect there’s that
interest in having these these units in place but what very often happens there
isn’t that mandatory requirement to have the testing done so I’ve I’ve heard of
situations where the device is put in when the building is first constructed
but then someone might come in and go well it’s kind of hampering the flow of water probably because it needs to be
repaired and they’ll just take it out sometimes people don’t even know what it’s there for and so until unless there
is a systematic process there in terms of the installation and the regular
checking and testing and maintenance you may as well not bother so that’s kind of
one of the problems which is kind of why like I’ll give you an example of some a situation this is this is going back a
few years ago this is actually in Edmonton Alberta where at a research
facility they noticed a smell coming from the water uh from the hot water actually and then they found out that a
growth nutrient for microorganism had backf flowed from the laboratory into the facility’s domestic hot water system
so that is bad but that’s not as bad as some other components here where you
know and this is once again another uh Canadian example from Ontario where
petrochemicals back cphon from an industry into the drinking water system and that impacted 50,000 residents so
number one there’s a potential of impacting a huge population the other component is getting that system
completely cleaned and and running effectively again could take a long time so we we
run into situations where I have one more actually um this is going back to
Alberta where a highrise had bluc costic water flowing from the tops and it was
actually as a result of backflow from the heating system after repair repairs to the internal water lines the issue
took two weeks to repair so in the meantime you have these people living in this building that cannot drink water
cannot use water safely that’s coming from their Taps cut what do you want
every listener to know and what’s our duty when it comes to backflow prevention I think in terms of the
general public I think we need to be a bit more aware and in a way maybe we need to pressure our lawmakers that this
is really important that anywhere like as I said you know you could have the
best quality water coming from the water treatment facility but what happens to it between leaving the facility
and getting to your TAP that’s a part that is often not that rigorously
addressed and so these kinds of things it’s not a huge ticket item putting in a
backflow prevention I mean you think about how much water treatment facilities cost to to run and to build
and to to maintain this is not a huge ticket item so really anywhere where
there’s a potential of drinking water being impacted because of chemical
contamination related to backflow I think that’s something that really needs to be looked into in terms of how do we
make sure that there is little to no chance of the drinking water being
contaminated and one of the key areas is with back flow prevention devices that is essential but once again not only
just putting them in but testing them and repairing them and making sure they’re
effective I will let you know that when I purchase this facility about about a decade ago I was thinking of how do we
get phones installed how do we get internet installed how do we move from the old office to the new office I never
once thought about backflow prevention and it was about a year later when
apparently we were supposed to be receiving notices about testing and they never made it to us we’re thinking they
maybe went to the previous owner and got forwarded to them however we got to
notice that if we did not get something fixed or tested in 5 days they were
cutting off our water so our municipality is taking that seriously at
least for commercial buildings and I think that’s what it is I think I think there needs to be almost sort of
punitive measures with regards to this like when I ran the food manufacturing facility it basically would have been a
fine if it hadn’t been taken care of I don’t know if there would have been steps in terms of turning off the water possibly I’m not sure but you are
putting the public Public’s Health at risk without having proper systems in place and so one of the things that we
are trying to do at the environmental operator certification program is to implement a process by which operators
or anyone else can get the training and then we basically do what we do best we
provide the examination and then the certification and then part of the certification process is I’m really a
strong proponent of continuous professional development so part of that is that anyone going through this
program and being certified by us as a backflow prevention tester would need to
take 12 hours of training within a two-year time period to maintain their
certification so that is it’s not just about membership dues it’s not about just getting your certification and then
you set for the next 50 years or whatever it is you basically do need to
have continuous professional development which needs to be done within every two-year Peri perod to maintain your
certification because I really think that’s in the public interest the certification you provide is that good
all over Canada we’re hoping it will be we will be recognizing other jurisdictions and providing
certification via reciprocity we already have that in place for environmental operators who work across the country we
have people going back and forth especially between British Columbia and Alberta and we’re hoping to have that
implemented with this as well so this is a new certification that we’re launching in mid 2024 we’re basically going
through the whole process with regards to we’ve got the exam in place and we’re
the whole PR campaign with regards to Rolling it out and letting municipalities know that we have this
offering say there’s somebody listening and they live in Wisconsin where should
they go to figure out what the laws are and then also if there’s any certifications that they should be
familiar with I’d say maybe they should just Google backflow prevention certification I’m pretty sure that Most
states have some processes in place for certification cut what do you wish
everybody leaves this podcast knowing about backflow prevention I would love people to find
out about what exactly it is why it’s important and why lawmakers should be
paying more attention to this so that we don’t have these incidents of people
accidentally literally being poisoned by their drinking water because it is completely preventable that’s the
thing about it it is completely preventable and it’s not a big ticket item I know you have some resources to
help with that where should people go to learn more well if you go to eoc.ca
that’s one of the first articles and the banner is with regards to back for prevention and cross connection control
so that I think is a is a pretty good source it’s an article that I re searched and I wrote and I’ve spoken
about this issue as well so I think that’s a good place to start I mean not to toot my own horn but literally you
could just Google backflow prevention and you know why it’s important and you’ll find a wealth of information the
thing I about my article is it really talks about the different incidents
across North America because we’ve got several incidents in different parts of the US as well and actually I’ll talk
about one more and this is is in a town called Woodsboro with parat which is a
highly toxic pesticide held in storage tanks but they had actually connected it
to a water supply system and uh instead of water going from the supply system
into the tanks there was a back flow and paraquat was siphoned into the drinking
water system and uh 63 homes were contaminated wow totally preventable uh
what’s also worrisome of about it is that these incidents are likely happening on a regular basis we just
don’t know because the severity of the contamination isn’t that high so they
could be a little bit coming through but it’s not like the really obvious pink water or foaming water or blue water so
that’s also worrisome is that there could be incidents like this happening all the time that we don’t even know
about as you said at the top of the show no knowledge ever goes wasted so hope y
we have educated the entire scaling up nation and they are now looking for
these items com now I understand that you are a new member of the board of the
water environmental Federation so congratulations on that and can you tell the scaling up Nation a bit about the
wef so we is just a really fabulous organization and I just feel so
privileged to be part of it as a member of the board it’s one of the largest organizations ations in the space
internationally and uh to give you context I went to the conference in Chicago a few months ago there were
21,000 delegates which is quite amazing that is amazing the work it does is
phenomenal in terms of the level of expertise of the staff of the board
directors and if you want to find out more about being involved as a young
professional or um you know someone who’s been working in the industry
there’s so many opportunities there you go to their conference the next one will be in New Orleans and some of the
components I really like about it is like even just looking at um we’s
strategic uh strategic priorities I just love their vision and
their vision is a life free of water challenges what a thing to Aspire to so
there’s a lot of work in that area and and basically like when you just like I
really like looking at um the vision mission values of organizations and the
Strategic priorities if you look at the information for we it really resonated with me right from the get-go so I’m
really thrilled to be part of this organization what is something you want to make sure the listeners know about we
and uh who should get involved I think people get can get involved at all
levels as a student as a young professional people who were seasoned water Wastewater professionals I think
one of the key components I think that especially now when you think about
climate change and all those components there is the focus that the water
environment Federation has with regards to the circular water economy there’s a finite amount of water on this planet
and we really need to spend a bit more time looking at not not just water conservation but water treatment water
reuse and the circular water economy is something that is a big Focus for the water environment Federation but I would
really encourage people to have a look at the water environment federation’s website there’s a wealth of information
there and then of course attend the conference if possible at all because there’s a wide variety of speakers so
many opportunities to learn and um opportunities to contribute once again
very much in the public interest the work that’s done there we will make sure to have that conference on our events
page and who doesn’t want to go to New Orleans exactly exactly and actually we
should make sure that uh the eoc’s conference is on your page too because we’d love to have we did have some
people from the US attend in person this this year so that’s really great because you know what no matter where you live
Water waste water are important we are going to make sure to have that on our event ‘s page as well and our team will
make sure any information you have uh we’ll go ahead and get that updated well I’ve got a few lightning round questions
for you if you’re ready for those absolutely if you could go back in time
and talk to your former self is your first day as a CEO what advice would you
give yourself I think the advice would be I look at the organization from the
10,000 meter level and look at opportunities I think that’s a really key component and then also just with
that whole aspect with regards to collaboration collaboration between different organizations different
individuals in the sector because at the end of the day we’re all in this together I love that what are the last
few books that you’ve read I just finished reading lessons in chemistry it
resonated with me also I mean it’s going back be before my time but a woman
chemist and the the challenges she faced as a a female in the industry so I
thought that was very interesting a book that really resonates with me that I go
back to periodically is um a book that was written by one of the professors of
a Harvard program I had taken and it’s basically it’s titled how will you
measure your life and I find that it’s it’s got a lot of business information but it’s got a lot of information with
regards to credibility and just different aspects with regards to you
know looking back on your life and living a life with no regret or few regrets so I think that that’s a book
that I kind of I sort of almost have it there all the time and then I try to
kind of balance things between fiction and non-fiction so I bought my son years
ago a graphic novel series called Saga so I re I’m just reread reading those
again it’s a little bit on the lighter side but I also tend to read a fair
amount of books related to the uh water Wastewater industry and one of the books
I read not too long ago is called the big necessity the unmentionable world of
human waste and white matters it sounds like a strange book to read but it is
actually really fascinating because it talks about waste management or I should
say Wastewater Management on an internal level it’s bit geeky but it’s really
informative too because it just makes you realize how some things that we totally take for granted in North
America are a distant dream in so many other parts of the world without a doubt they’re going to
write a movie script about your life who do you want playing you oh it would be
so flattering if I had someone like I think this I think she’s just absolutely gorgeous is would be like Holly Berry I
think she’s just amazing she’d be lucky to get the
part my last question if you could talk to anybody throughout history who would it be with and why I was kind of
thinking about that and this can be a bit of a contentious thing for some people because you know when it comes to
politicians people hate them or love them and the two people I thought about they’re they’re both female politicians
one is erea Gandhi who was probably one of the world’s first female prime
ministers I think she became a prime minister around the same time that the UCP was founded in
1966 and the other one is gold Amer from Israel another politician uh both very
strong women to some extent I think about them I think about someone like my mother who was also a very uh amazing
role model for me she out of U most of my actually all of my friends um my mom
was not a stay-at-home mom she ran a business so just in in terms of that
I’ve had some I’ve had some amazing uh female role models in my life and I’m
forever grateful for they they were trade Blazers well col now thank you for
coming on the scaling up H2O podcast we’ve learned a lot about backflow
prevention and different organizations that we should check out and uh it’s just been a great interview thank you so
much thank you my pleasure I’m so glad that I was selected for this appreciate
it col what a delight to have you on the scaling up H2O podcast and Nation we
talked about a lot of resources today in the interview and I know you are busy
servicing accounts and driving to your next account so don’t worry we have everything that we mentioned on our show
notes page and I was talking to somebody the other day that is a Avid listener of
the scaling up H2O podcast and they were asking me questions about a particular Episode by the way I love it when people
will say on episode 215 what did you mean about 15 minutes in and and folks I
love you for asking that question my memory is not that good so uh after I
kind of laughed and said I don’t remember that show they told me what I was talking about and what the show was
called and I said oh yes I remember that episode so we were able to talk about it and then I mentioned I’m pretty sure
that we did some sort of onepage document to accompany that episode and
they had no idea and we went to the web page and sure enough we did and they were able to download that PDF and it
had the answer to their question and all these other resources so we don’t do
that for every single episode but a lot of episodes we do put one pagers out to
help you gain even more information outside of the podcast but on each and
every episode we list everything that we talk about if there is a product
mentioned or another episode or another website that you need to go to all of
that is on our show notes page so here is my public service announcement for
the scaling up Nation if you have not visited this episode’s web page you were
probably only getting half of the information because you can enhance your
journey with whatever you’re learning about on whatever scaling up H2O podcast
Episode by going to the web page and then getting all of that wealth that
Treasure Trove of information where we send you to all different places where
you can enhance what you’re trying to learn folks if you are looking for Legionella we have an entire Legionella
section you know we have had that topic on our program sever several times and
we’ve just taken all of that and the the great team here at scaling up h2l has
created an entire page dedicated to all of our Legionella resources if we’ve
talked about it it is up there so all this to say for this episode we talked
about a lot of resources please make time in your schedule to go to the website and look at some of the things
that CNO was talking about they could help you with a conversation with your customer
and who knows maybe you want to get a particular certification because you learned about it today and I think that
was great advice that CNA gave us go to Google and figure out what are some certifications that maybe you should
actually have and you don’t even know about because of the type of water treatment that you do why not get it
before a government entity says hey you’re fine because you don’t have it I
hope that’s not the case I hope you’re just looking on ways that you can enhance what you’re currently doing but
Google whatever that is maybe after today’s episode you want to get certified in backflow prevention and
inspection go ahead and search to figure out what is available in your area and
maybe that’s a way that you can get into that plant that you just can’t get in
you offer another service there are so many certifications that we are required
and expected to know that we are supposed to have as an industrial water
trater but we may not know about it so that’s another reason we brought the hang together maybe you might meet
somebody in your area and they say hey if you’re in Georgia you need a pesticide applicators licens to apply
microbicide well folks that is a fact and I will tell you there are many
companies that are operating within the state of Georgia that do not have that
so if you’re listening to me and you are in my home state of Georgia be sure to look at that because the Department of
Agriculture eventually will come knocking at your door and you probably won’t like the letters that they leave
with you so don’t experience that Google anything you can think of as far as certifications that you might think that
you might need and if there’s something out there go ahead and get it and now
you’ve got something else that you can add how you you are more professional so
thank you CNA for that advice and of course we’re going to have everything that she mentioned today on our show
notes page and of course somebody who helps us each and every week learn new
things drop by drop here is our friend James [Music]
McDonald welcome to drop by drop with James the podcast segment where we wonder if explore think about imagine
and learn in duster water treatment you guessed it drop by drop
together in this week’s episode we’re thinking about reverse osmosis in
particular we are thinking about the dissolve solids and some of the things that influence their Passage through the
ARL membrane more than simply filtration reverse osmosis is a diffusion process
through a semi-permeable polymer membrane that sounds fancy I know but
can be more than simply size that matters for dissolve solids trying to pass through the ARL membrane one of my
go-to books for R is written by Wes burn and is called reverse osmosis a
practical guide for industrial users second edition I have not read it cover to cover but drop by drop as I have
questions or needs it’s a good well- written practical book that makes a complex subject
digestible right in the very beginning it sneak in some important Concepts on pages 8 through 14 in particular that
open my eyes more as I thought about them first it talks about the size
versus apparent size of atoms and molecules trying to pass through the ARL membrane when you think of sodium and
calcium atoms you probably think of just a single sodium or calcium atom floating around the water
solution however as we learned in last week’s episode of drop by drop we know water molecules are sticky because of
hydrogen bonding sodium and calcium are charged
ions they will be surrounded by water molecules hydrogen binding to them making an ion group with a larger
apparent size did you hear that the apparent size of sodium and calcium ions
are bigger than the individual sizes because of the Entourage of water molecules attracted to them oh yeah
yeah this is called ion hydration the higher the charge of the ion the greater
the number of water molecules attracted to it and the more difficult it is for it to diffuse through an AAL
membrane now before I read this part of the book I had heard that the higher the ionic charge the higher the percent
rejection typically was but I had never considered the role that water’s hydrogen bonding played in that
rejection that’s one more reason to love hydrogen
bonding I’m not done yet however a second concept this book drove home for me can
be found on page nine it mentions that the Water Solutions we commonly deal
with are neutrally charged with no charge imbalances overall sure there are
positively charged catons and negatively charged anion but they tend to stay close together resulting in a net
neutral charge this also means that you will not have a cation I passing through
a neural membrane unless an annion or annion of equal charged quantity passes
through as well your pluses must equal your minuses of what passes through whoa
now not only do disolve solids have a larger appearent size because of ion hydration but there is a balancing act
of what can pass through an AO membrane based upon their charges as well yes and
it is fascinating isn’t that amazing the example given is of sodium sulfate or
na2 so4 when it dissolves in water we will have sodium ions with A+ one charge and
sulfate ions with a -2 charge they’ll both be surrounded by water molecules
making their apparent sizes bigger the sulfate Ion with its larger -2 charge
will have an even larger apparent size than the sodium ion so the sulfate ion will have a much harder time getting
through the ARL membrane one would think the sodium ion with only its plus one
charge might Sail on through the the membrane but hold your
horses because the total charges of what passes through the membrane must balance out if the sulfate can’t go through then
the sodium won’t go through either now that’s
loyalty however if we add some cac2 to the water things change now you have
positive calcium ions with a plus two charge and negatively charged chloride ions with their minus one charge
chloride ne1 charge is smaller than sulfates -2 charge so its apparent size
will also be smaller and it will more readily pass through the ARL membrane now the Chargers passing through the
membrane will be balanced as both sodium + one and chloride minus one pass
through as calcium sulfate stay behind the entire Dynamic
changed man that’s a lot I hope I made it somewhat understandable and did did
the topic Justice you might have to rewind to listen again because this water’s
deep I’ve just had these bits of Aro information rattling around my brain for years and I’ve seen many aha moments
when sharing them with others I’m James McDonald and I want to
encourage you to be like water by forming bonds with those around you dissolving new knowledge and making
worthy ripples drop by drop thank you James Nation next week we
are celebrating World water day so tune in as we all celebrate together until
then have a great week and I hope you learn something new take care
[Music] folks scaleup Nation I believe there are
so many potential certified water technologists out there that just have not sat for the examination and I know
that is a daunting thought to sit for that examination to help with that I
prepared a free cwt course where I outline the entire Handbook of
everything that you need to know to take and maintain your certified water
technologist designation to get that go to scaling up h2o.com
cwt prep once again that’s scaling up h2o.com
cwt prep Yes you heard me right that is [Music]