The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
today’s episode is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind each and every year the rising tide Mastermind
gets together in Atlanta for a live event this is one of the most
anticipated events within the rising tide Mastermind normally we have a zoom
call each and every week but this is where we all come together and we become
better friends we learn more about each other and we help each other with their
issues it is my favorite thing and I’m sure it is going to be your favorite thing to look forward to if you were a
member of the rising tide Mastermind that could be a possibility to find out
if the rising tide Mastermind is right for you and you are right for the rising tide Mastermind go to scaling up h2o.com
slm Mastermind and you can schedule a 15minute call with me to find out
more welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our
systems I’m Trace Blackmore and I am super excited to bring you Today’s Show
and of course we are right in the middle of December and that means there are
only nine shopping days left before Christmas now if you’re not listening to
this episode right when it comes out you have even less and that made me think
why do we always count shopping days till Christmas and that’s because we all
love to procrastinate and procrastinating gift shopping is one of
the number one procrastinated tasks that we we share as a community and don’t
believe me I googled this and that’s where it came up so with that there are so many people that wait until the very
last minute to buy their gifts and that is why the last week of the Christmas
holiday is always the busiest week for shopping days and that’s out of the
entire holiday season that’s even after Black Friday which is right after
Thanksgiving when they put all the deals out and Cyber Monday when they put all the deals out the number one ranked
volume for shopping is always the very last week in fact they call the Saturday
before Christmas and that’s going to take place December 23rd this year that
is the number one shop in day of the entire year where all the
procrastinators are getting their gifts that’s the busiest shopping day of the
year that just got me thinking that we’re a world of procrastinators and I was wondering why
so of course I used my friend Google and I found an article by Dr Joseph melli
and he was saying this is actually a quote the brain makes wise decisions for for our survival but the executive
function of our brains has been changed from being an industrialized Society for
having more pleasurable distractions around so he thinks what’s happened is
our brains have enabled us to get distracted by things that will take us
off task but that doesn’t necessarily kill us so not buying the gift is not
going going to kill us but stepping out in front of a bus will so our brain’s
doing a good job at that so there you go that’s what Dr melli says and maybe you
can do a better job planning next week maybe you enjoy Super Saturday maybe you
enjoy standing in line or waiting in traffic at the shopping malls and if
that is your thing there is no judgment here I have to tell you I’m a big
planner and I’m only a big planner because I just don’t like wasting time
and I I just like to be productive in most everything that I do and I cannot
stand waiting in line I can’t stand traffic things like that no I don’t get
any road rage or anything like that I normally listen to books on tape and I try to multitask while I’m doing
something like that but I take advantage fully of the Cyber Monday if I don’t
have to leave the comfort of my environment to get gifts for my loved
ones you better believe I am going to take advantage of that you know a great
gift that you can give yourself is by going to Audible and you can uh you
actually listen to books while you’re waiting in traffic you can do it while you’re waiting in line I really prefer
if you meet somebody new but I know we don’t always do that so you can listen to a chapter
or two or eight while you’re waiting in line with all of your closest friends buying your last minute holiday gifts
we’ve got a free book and a free month we can give you by going to scaling up h2o.com
Audible and here’s something a lot of people don’t know and maybe you’re already an audible subscriber audible
each and every month will put fre free books that’s right free books you don’t
have to buy you don’t have to use a credit and you can download those for
your library so something that I put and yes I have a task for it in my calendar
each and every month I will go through audible I will put in free books there’s
actually a category for that and I will do some quick searches in categories that I like and I always bolster my
library now I will tell you those are normally the last books that I listen to but I’ve also found some gems on there
that I would have never listened to but because they were free I have now
recommended these books to people that I coach The Mastermind and I never would
have found them before if I didn’t look on Audible another thing that you can do
with audible is you might not want to use a credit Credit Now your monthly
subscription whatever you’re paying for that that’s how much a credit is you
might find a book that’s only $3 my advice is you go ahead and pay the
$3 there and not use your credit and use a credit on a more expensive book and
I’ve heard a lot of members are using audible that way so they can get the
most out of their subscription and of course the last tip about audible is is
perhaps you can increase the speed in which you listen and I had a challenge
earlier this year to go ahead and increase the speed of my audible that
was episode 292 when we introduced the nation to Scott walak and he was
listening to his books on 3.5 and you heard my disbelief on
episode 292 and he actually held up his a audible uh from his phone to his
microphone and you can hear how fast it was and I told him there was absolutely no way he understood that Scott proved
to me that not only can he listen at that rate of speed he actually takes
notes too and he showed me some of the net outs that he did for each and every book that he listened to now I’m still
not up to 3.5 speed but I do listen at 2.5 speed and that that has really
increased the number of books that I am able to read and yes folks I actually do
get the content at that speed and I started doing the same thing that Scott did and I started writing net outs on
some key points and things about that book so when I’m trying to organize my thoughts maybe for this show maybe it is
a event that I want to do and I want to talk about a particular book I now have
easy notes to access and and that’s just been a game Cher for me so maybe not
only we can help some people shop a little bit earlier this year we can help
people with their reading while they do it I want to make sure something you
don’t procrastinate on is signing up for the Hang that’s taking place January
11th that’s going to be at 6:00 p.m. eastern time so wherever you are around
the world go ahead and join us for the Hang we have people from Ireland we have
people from the United Kingdom we’ve had people from Australia we’ve had people
from China and of course we have people from the United States joining us on the
hang and the Hang is just such a wonderful thing if you haven’t been on one that’s where we get together each
and every quarter and we just meet other water treatment professionals we do some
fun activities while we’re on the hang and then I put you in smaller breakout
rooms so you can not only meet each other you can talk about little topics that we bring up during the hang and I
have heard so many success stories where people share that they were able to solve an
issue because of people they met on the hang and they had particular expertise
of what they were having an issue with so this has just been a great thing to host we’ve been doing this since
2020 and it is going strong but we need you so how do you sign up for the hang
you can go to scaling up2.com hang we have all the information that
you want to know and a registration link so I hope to see you on that hang some
other events you might want to put on your calendar is the 2024 annual conference and CTI Expo that of course
is the cooling technology Institute and that is taking place in Houston Texas
February 4 through 8th we’re going to have all the information that you need on that on our events page and then the
wqa that’s the water quality Association business boot camp is taking place March
4th in Orlando Florida and this is a day set aside for people to step away from
working in their businesses to f focus on working on it to learn more about
this you can go to our events page well Nation we are always trying to bring
guests to you so you can learn more and more about our industry so you leave
each and every podcast so much smarter and so much more well equipped as an
industrial water treater here’s our interview
my lab partner today is Bill Kennedy of Stant welcome to the scaling up H2O
podcast Bill well thank you excited to be here and looking forward to chatting
we’re going to learn a lot today on the scaling up H2O podcast but before we get
into today’s topic do you mind telling the scaling up Nation a bit about yourself sure well Bill Kennedy I’m a
Consulting chemical process engineer with stantech and I lead our industrial
water practice I enjoy problem solving and have a real passion for inorganic
chemistry and that passion was ignited in me by my high school chemistry teacher and if you don’t mind I’m going
to give a shout out to him uh Mr Dan Holquist uh that was 40 some years ago
and I he had a real impact on me and really influenced on what I’m doing and
what I am today so but and I really enjoy mentoring the next next generation
of Engineers and scientists and that’s who I am you know you mentioned teachers
and I can look back uh my father was primarily responsible for me getting into this industry but I look at all of
the science teachers that I had that made this topic interesting and just
shaping the the Next Generation and and there’s so many people I could think to for pouring into me and sharing their
enthusiasm so I could get excited about science oh yeah I I always find uh
asking the questions and some of the interns that I’ve worked with and the co-ops over the years I tell them if if
you hear something that you don’t know or don’t understand don’t just go about wondering yeah go look it up go ask a
question you yeah it’s you may not get the answer right away but if you keep asking you keep pursuing you’ll connect
the dots and it’ll make sense one day knowledge is good and that is a great
theme for today’s podcast because uh what we’re going to be talking about I don’t have any experience in so we’re
all going to be learning together so let’s just go ahead and reveal what
we’re going to be starting to talk about so it’s the steam electric generation effluent limitation guidelines so bill
please help us what is that well first off it’s a Environmental Protection
Agency EPA rule many major industries have their own elgs and and this one
particular is for steam electric generation or electric power generation
Industries this is a requirement under the Clean Water Act that I came around I
believe it was 1972 and these elgs for Industries are
required to be updated every 10 years elgs are Technology based limits for
various effluence streams that would come from an industry and are one of several criteria that permit writers
must consider when they’re putting a a discharge permit together for that facility for the steam electric
industry the most significant recent update was back in
2015 prior to that the last time it was updated was back in 1982 so if if we look around just at
telephones computers and whatnot we can recognize the change in technology
between 82 and 15 a lot of things changed and that’s true for the water treatment industry water Technologies
also since 2005 EPA began sampling and reviewing data
technology from industry from technology providers to appropriately update the
elgs as they apply to the various wayist streams the importance of the elgs is to
drive the application of new wastewater treatment Technologies to the
wastewaters and as I said uh earlier the elgs are technology driven you know what
is possible what is practical and along with all rules Federal rules there there
are a lot of boundaries on how things are considered what can be included what can’t be included so if we’re applying
for a discharge permit we’re involved in Wastewater that’s where this is going going to come into absolutely this is
what I would consider the first pass of what a perit writer would have to look
at if we take waist stream a they got to look at Technology based limits first
and then there’s a series of of other criteria to look at one of which is the
receiving body what the water quality based limits are for the receiving body is it already impaired or not but it’s a
hierarchy of criteria that the per writers have to use so as somebody out
there that is treating Wastewater uh and now they have a term what do they now
need to do what what do they need to know next well I first of all effent
limitation guidelines are are typical or well actually not typically they are put
out in the Federal Register and like many federal regulations they get
updated they have parts and subp parts and sub chapters the first thing to do
is not just look at the latest revision because the revisions when they come out are more or less erish sheets you you
really need to go back and take a look at the rule and its totality so if you
have a specific waist stream what are you allowed to do what aren’t you allowed to do there are a lot of
exceptions criteria specific situations that that fall into place so educating
yourself on the holistic parts of the rule how they come into play because at
the end of the day and with the steam electric industry typically here we’re talking about fossil coal power plants
we’re not creating matter we’re not destroying matter we’re we’re playing whack-a-mole really we’re taking a
constituent that started out in the ground in the coal it’s what’s left over from the combustion process we’re taking
it out of the flu gas potentially we’re putting it into the water the water guys
are taking it out and we’re putting it in a solid form the solid waste folks
end up putting in a landfill it may come back out in the leachate again and goes back to the water folks we haven’t
figured out how to stick it all back to the air folks yet but it’s how do we move the materials around how do we
clean up the constituents in the water in a form that they’re essentially
sequestered they’re they’re moved to to a safe location and an environmentally
responsible location you mentioned that this is currently being newly revised
it’s been revised a couple of times what’s that process like well I if if you’ve been paying
attention to the news and you see what happens up in DC at times this process
is not that dissimilar the process starts out with data collection and EPA
is in a very tough position because they have a responsibility to protect the
environment and they have rules that they need to go by there are industry groups that are certainly looking out
for the best interest of industry and there are environmental groups that have other agendas on either trying to shut
industry down or ostensibly look at what’s best for the environment and EPA
needs to walk that tight rope between them because at the end of the day when the regulations come out both sides are
going to sue them so how do you protect yourself with data let the facts speak
for themselves did they follow the rules so data collection is the first part and that’s what’s in the wastewaters and in
fact when we were first starting some of these data collection efforts uh years ago EPA came to one of the sites I was
working at and yum was on the list and was like yum who cares about yum why do
you think there’s yri there’s no yum in the water and I just think yum is such a cool element to pronounce and I
distinctly remember the response that I received from uh from the EPA person was
well how do you know it’s not in there we never tested for it so we collected some data and sure enough utum was not
in the water in any appreciable quantities to to worry about but there was a basis then where checked off utum
we could move on to zinc so they were going through the alphabet is what they were doing well yeah I like to to say
they were going to aluminum to Yum because aluminum to Atrium just sounds so much better than aluminum to zinc but
yeah what’s important what’s what’s has potential to be a constituent of concern
after the data collection it’s what technologies are available a technology
to be available has to be demonstrated somewhere and if it was demonstrated in a pilot operation somewhere not
necessarily full scale that’s still fair game and best available techn technology
a lot of times is shortened to the acronym bat uh but the full definition is best
available technology economically available so there’s there’s an economic
component to this does the removal of the constituents on the available
technology is that a reasonable cost uh so that that all comes into play and
then there’s timing how soon do folks uh specifically indust indry here have to
implement this technology and part of that research and evaluation is you just
don’t go out and buy a system overnight two months whatever there’s a three four
five year cycle to actually implement the technology get the constituent
components get construction uh to install it and then bring it online so
all those go into play environmental groups say the EPA is being too lean
industry says it’s too restrictive and A good rule which I really believe the
2020 version was a good good version of of the effluent guidelines for this was
that nobody was happy with it everybody didn’t get exactly what they want which meant it was a reasonable compromise at
least in my opinion because it’s a balancing act and when we’re dealing with the electric power industry we need
to recognize that we’re not making chemicals we’re not making widgets we’re making electric power we’re making that
electricity that we’re relying on right now to have this podcast to have the lights on to keep our Netflix going and
our our cell phones and our our various social media running not to mention
cooling and heating our homes and and whatnot so if a site has difficulty
implementing the technology the utility certainly would wouldn’t want to be in violation of the rule so if can’t afford
to put it in they shut down the site well there’s a reason why these power
generating units are out there is because there is demand and many of the electric
utilities in our country are regulated utilities so they have state utility
commissions telling them what they can recover their Capital Investments on
what they can’t credit to their base and ultimately if it’s going to cost an
extra hundred million $200 million to treat something on a regulated utility
who’s going to pay for it well it’s going to show up in your power bill and my power bill so that’s something that
needs to be considered uh how does the cost get passed on uh and that all goes
into the equation of how these rules are developed so as this is in a revision
period is there a role that a practitioner of water treatment needs to play can we give information to the EPA
or is that not advised well that’s actually very advisable when EPA comes
out with a with a proposed rule they solicit input I believe the the period
for for input or the official period right now uh has expired that’s usually
90 days after the proposal is is published but that’s not to say that if
there’s additional data available whether it’s analytical IAL data or it’s
technology that is emerging doesn’t mean that EPA won’t consider it and won’t include it into the docket so if there
are folks that have information I don’t want to speak for the EPA but in the past they’ve been
very receptive they’re looking to make sure they’re making the best
decisions there’s so many rules and regulations out there so somebody that’s
very well read on most of them I’m asking you you’re that person how do we
keep up how do we know that we’re doing the right thing how do we know that we’re not absent of something that
nobody told us about what’s the best way to make sure we’re keeping up well I I would say read up on on the news but
then also get involved in Industry groups the Publications they they generate as some of the organizations
that that I’ve I’ve looked to over the years certainly the international Water conference is a very good form for
exchange of information and the folks writing the elgs for many years would attend and take take notes and some of
the conversations during the sessions actually were referenced in some of the permit proceedings across the country
you have folks like the Electric Power Research Institute the North American Metals Council uh Edison Electric
Institute those those are all good organizations that try to get the information out or certainly share where
the direction of of some of the rules are going and and certainly can link people to what direction they they may
want to do further research I I would say that there’s a there’s a lot of
emotion in a hyperbole that gets out there yeah I’ve seen comments at public hearings where you shoot the the power
plants discharging Mercury and arsenic into the river okay that is absolutely
correct cor but then again if I’m swimming in the river and just happen to
spit or do something else in the river I’m also discharging Arsenic and Mercury
to the river and it gets into Mass loading as opposed to concentration base
and just some interesting statistics the the limits for selenium and that’s
allowed to be discharged from flu gas desulfurization Wastewater which is one of the big issues here with uh uh with
the effluent limitation guidelines those limits are almost half of what’s
allowable in drinking water the Arsenic limits pretty much match up what’s in
allowable in apple juice and in fact FDA the Food and Drug Administration
mandates a minimum level of selenium in infant formula that far exceeds what’s
allowed to be discharged by the power plant so it it gets into Mass loading
you know when you’re discharging thousand thousands of gallons per day small concentrations make a big
difference but at the same time it gets into what’s a pollutant versus what’s a
what I like to say a constituent of concern when I look at my multivitamin a
lot of the constituents that are in my multivitamin are also regulated in the
discharge of water if you can’t live without them I’ve argued with with us attorneys that you really can’t call
them pollutants and it’s it’s like a bottle of baby aspirin if if you look at the baby
aspirin folks that start to get a little older doctor tells you take a baby aspirin a day and you can take a baby
aspirin every day for the rest of your life and it has positive effects on you
but if you take the whole bottle at once it’s probably going to kill you and it’s just like a glass of red wine my my
doctor told me a glass of red wine a day and I said well can I get a prescription for that and he said a glass not a
bottle a day so a little bit good too much is bad and everything in moderation and that’s what the public
needs to understand on these effluent limitation guidelines and there’s an analytical
aspect of it also we’re potentially measuring or regulating constituents
that we have a difficult time measuring that low are the analytical methods
available are they accurate even the sampling methods make a difference so that all comes in into
play and I I know I’m giving you a real long answer to what what a simple question but you the more the public can
educate themselves go to the various sources ask questions the better off everybody will be in the long run Bill
if somebody wants to dive deeper into elgs or maybe even read some of these
regulations themselves where should they go well probably the easiest place to
start is on the epa’s website rather than just typing in EPA goov I would
suggest going into your favorite search engine and typing in Steam electric effluent limitation guidelines or steam
electric elgs and that’ll give you a link to to some of the specific Pages if
you really have problem sleeping at night going into one of the law sites uh
one of the sites that I use is Cornell Law And typing in the the regulation
itself and rather than just seeing the latest version it will give you start to finish what
the current law of the land is as opposed to just the the latest Arata I’ll make sure to have some links
to those on our show notes page let’s transition a little bit you mentioned
the International Water conference the IWC I know you have a role within the
IWC this year so uh I wanted to ask what is the IWC and then what are you doing
within the IWC C this year sure well the IWC is the International Water
conference it’s sponsored by the engineering Society of Western Pennsylvania and uh not sure how many
years exactly it’s been going on but I I know we had our 80th anniversary a few
years back I think we’re ready for another one coming up here it’s a forum
for for folks to share Lessons Learned to exchange knowledge
and and really networking on a wide range of water treatment Technologies
analytical issues related to water treatment where you have folks that are
uh experts in the field acknowledged experts in the field both users end users technology providers engineering
firms come together and it’s a it’s a forum where not only are the technical
papers presented but there is a open discussion there’s a formal discussion
of the papers by what we would say somebody else that’s familiar with the subject and then there’s an open Q&A for
the for the author so it’s a very open technical exchange I would say the
papers presented are peer-reviewed and it occurs annually for
I think the first 50 plus years it was started out in Pittsburgh and stayed in
Pittsburgh and since then as as we’ve got a more National and international
following it’s been rotating across the country my role this year is that I’m
the uh technical program chairman so I get to review the various abstracts that
were submitted lead the group of of individuals that determine what the program needs to be how to put the
abstracts together and come up with what hopefully will be an interesting and educational program along with that we
have something that we call our emerging topics committee we’re always trying to see okay what’s coming across the
Horizon here what’s the what’s the next interesting Hot Topic that’s coming up
and several years ago pias those forever chemicals was brought up and we had any
number of uh sessions on that and that’s slowly tapering off and lithium and
Mining are are popping up microelectronics are becoming more of an interest where power plants flu gas
desulfurisation were hot 10 years ago now we only have one session dealing
with power plants so we’re we’re trying to always stay relevant and current for for the attendees of the of the
conference I find it interesting that legislators uh attend and they figure
out what the next laws are going to be what information do we need to know so we can create the next
elg oh yeah yeah well the The Regulators they come in and they’ve list listened
I’d say they ask some very pointed questions at times and they also want to hear what the rest of us are saying
about them at times but it’s my experience it’s always been a a fun exchange and a very collegial
professional exchange and it’s a it’s a good sharing of information now the IWC you have this
particular role this year and you transition to another role next year what is that well NE next year I’ll be
the general chairman of the conference so I get to provide leadership and make
sure that we are maintaining the continuity of the goals of the conference which are to provide that
professional Forum to educate the the industry the water treatment industry
and to just maintain that ongoing exchange of of knowledge so obviously we want people to
check out the IWC and see if it’s right for them but what else should they know about the
IWC well the conference we have for young professionals that are that are
just getting out of school or just getting into the industry we have a mentoring program we try to provide some
opportunities for those younger folks to to engage with the folks that have been
around sometimes we’ve we’ve set it up where uh we can pair them up with a with
a a mentor or a guide at the conference to get some key introductions there is an opportunity
for for vendors to have a show floor or display floor where they can tell about
their companies and their services some and we also have a forum in which folks
can do a more of a commercial bit I forgot to mention earlier though that the technical program itself is
non-comercial companies are allowed to mention trade names or the corporate name once in the presentation but
besides that it’s supposed to be generic in references to a technology you mentioned mentoring
several times as we’ve been speaking today and that’s something that’s near and dear to me I’ve had several shows
just on the topic of mentoring can you tell us a little bit about why that’s so
important to you and what you do to Mentor sure for me why is it important
is I believe in Pay It Forward I was heavily involved in voice Scouts in my youth and and as I got got older uh and
I distinctly remember one individual telling us to go out and be a thief well
you had a bunch of Boy Scouts and some leader telling us to be a thief but but he quickly said after we got our
attention with that comment is go out and steal with your eyes and your ears only and it’s watch what do you see what
do you hear learn from that and I’ve taken that to heart I’ve had as I
mentioned my chemistry R teacher I had some other teachers whether it was in high school whether it was in my college
days and my early years as a professional that showed me things that shared things with me I had some
maintenance supervisor that you figured out that a young engineer you know needed to have some lessons and how the
world really works and you that that was a tremendous education and so what I try to do now is
with my my junior engineer my interns and and whatnot I try to get them
exposed to uh industry getting them out into the field let them get dirty let
them get a little wet at times and one of the things I I just had I just did
not too long ago was I try to take the the college students that are working with me take them to to a Home Depot or
Lowe’s or or somewhere at lunch and take them through the piping aisle and it’s
like this is a globe valve this is a ball valve this is a needle valve and show them what the actual pipe fittings
are what the components are so they can see them they can understand how they
really work and what the differences are and it’s reading about it’s one thing but seeing it and being able to touch it
is another thing and I’ve I’ve always shared with them that empirical data
trumps Theory every time so paying forward is is really my
motivation if somebody wants to get involved in mentoring somebody what
advice would you give them take a look at what was important to to you as an
individual as as you came up in your career yeah if we’re talking about Career Mentoring professional mentoring
share with them the Lessons Learned you know uh hopefully they will uh be able
to learn from the good and avoid the bad it’s sharing experiences you what what
did you as a potential Mentor takeaway from over your years that was meaningful
that you can go ahead and and share that information I love that answer there’s so many people out there that discredit
themselves saying what do I have to offer somebody to be a mentor but they have that experience and that’s what
they’re lacking oh yeah and I need to say that just what needs to be in the
Forefront of of any sort of mentoring experience or any professional
interaction is maintaining safety and passing on the message of Ethics I like
to say that any project that we do has to be safe it needs to be
environmentally compliant or regulator compliant it needs to be reliable and
then only after it hits those first three bullets do we worry about economics because if we put in something
that is the least expensive option that’s not safe it’s not compliant not reliable then is it really an option and
safety and ethics need to be the Forefront of any sort of mentoring and
and and training for the emerging professionals that’s great advice and on
that great advice uh we’re going to shift over to just something interesting I understand you have a connection to
John Belushi well I’ve over the years I’ve
I’ve done a number of presentations and and one of the slides I like to use is
the um Alma moer uh seal for for Faber college and for your listeners that may
or may not remember it’s been a few years Animal House that’s the university
there and the motto of fav college is knowledge is good and that really stuck
with me and it’s always interesting when when I put that slide up where the glimmer of recognition is across the
audience yeah you can you can see some generational differences and yeah it’s
it’s always fun but the message knowledge is good yeah I I firmly believe that well I’ve got a few
lightning round questions for you these are questions that I ask all of my guests so are you ready for those sure
here we go so uh if you could go back in time and talk to your former self on your very first day as a chemical
process engineer what advice would you give yourself oh I would say
get wet and dirty and listen to The Operators The Operators are the ones
that really know how things are working and what’s really going on not those fancy procedures that you wrote up so
it’s it’s getting their input because they’re going to do what they’re able to do and they’re very critical to listen
to and to learn things and the other item there is when it comes to
engineering and science I hate hate to say this that there is no magic CU I
think it’s fun but when it comes to why something happened there’s always a reason for it and stuff just doesn’t
happen there may be undefined variables but just be persistent keep digging and
figure out how to connect those dots I love that what are the last few books
that you’ve read well this is going to be certainly diverse a recent one I read
was called The Disappearing spoon by Sam Kean I have read that it is fascinating
and it’s it’s about the the the history of the elements and some of the
antidotal uh stories that go along with the discovery and development of of the
elements and it just goes to my geeky chemical side another one was special
forces Berlin I actually grew up over in Germany as a quasi military brat and
during the Cold War era and this hit a lot of the the history of what was going
on uh during the Cold War days when I was in high school and growing up over there so that that was most interesting
and then the other another one that I recently read which goes to one of my other passions is Kentucky bourbon
whiskey and American Heritage and distillation and yeah that’s a that’s a
chemical engineering process and yeah I’ve I’ve got a little passion there for for the bourbon along the way so now uh
Jane Cera who I interviewed back on episode 339 she told me to ask you about
Bourbon and I’m going to be in Kentucky uh next year the association of water Technologies is having their conference
so couple of us were going to get together we were going to do a bourbon tour what do we need to know oh well you
need to know that first of all how to drink it you you just don’t swallow it you know you you smell smell it you sip
it you let it come over your tongue and enjoy it the other thing to know is bourbon very similar to Wine it depends
on what you’re pairing it with if you’re having a meal uh you can have a
completely different palette if you’re munching on some some cheese or having some nuts there you know or if you’re
just drinking it straight but at the end of the day is what’s good that’s whatever you like there are so many
different types and flavors varieties out there so Life’s too short to drink
stuff you don’t enjoy I think that’s great advice whoever you are when Hollywood finds out about the script of
your life who do you want playing you oh that was a tough one and yeah I I had to
pull the audience on this one and got a few few ideas there but I gotta say
probably Tom Hanks yeah when I and I yeah he’s got the curly hair and he’s
got the Gray beard now also but he’s he’s played a number of roles over the years that yeah I think fit and
as I’m buying a as I’m moving to a new house now uh The Money Pit comes to mind
first of all but yeah on the nonprofessional side of things but yeah Tom Hanks final question if you could
talk to anybody throughout history who would it be with and why without hesitation I’d say Mark Twain Samuel
Clemens I always saw him as a great Storyteller and his stories are about
real people and events and you essentially turning real life into into
Fun Parables and I I just think that would be a fascinating sit down and I
believe he drinks bourbon also so there’s probably something to share there along with the stories there you
go well hey thank you so much for educating us about elgs getting us to think about some of the regulations that
are out there and how we can take an active role and we’ll of course have all of the notes on that and the IWC and all
the other things that we talked about so thanks so much for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast I certainly enjoyed it
thank you for having me I got the pleasure of meeting bill at
the International Water conference I not only met bill I met the entire Board of
the IWC at the conference and I was so honored I was their keynote speaker
this past year and that was so much fun I met so many wonderful people there met
a lot of scaling up Nation members there at the conference and I’m pretty sure we
gained a lot of new members to this scaling up Nation at that conference so
to the entire IWC board I want to thank you for allowing me to meet not only you
but your entire audience it Tru truly was a pleasure working with you and for
those of you that are members of The Association of water Technologies I’ve actually asked the board if I could
speak at their conference so if you know anybody on the board let them know that I would absolutely love to do the
keynote speech at the association of water Technologies and that’s one of my favorite conferences just like the IWC
so hopefully I will see you at one of those conferences in in the near future
and I have to say it has just been so delightful to meet all of these other
trade organizations that understand how we’re all in this together to raise the bar in
the industrial water treatment industry we are all stronger together and we can
raise that bar so much higher when we work together so I want to thank every
conference every Association out there that we are working with it really does
make my job so much easier so much more fun and of course I get to meet more
people which I absolutely love I love meeting people in this industry and one
of my favorite questions to ask is how did they get in this industry and Nation
it is very rare that I get the same answer twice there are so many unique
ways that we all get into the industrial water treatment industry and of course
somebody that we are so happy found their way into the industrial water treatment industry is our friend James
McDonald and here is a brand new periodic water table with James 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 watertable 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 AC or aluminum chlorohydrate what is a used for what is
its chemical formula does it have a single chemical formula would it be
classified as organic or inorganic what impact could it have on sludge production based upon other
similar chemicals what form or forms does it come in solid liquid or gas how
is AC use outside of industrial water treatment within the world we
live 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 learned to social media and tag it with #w t23 and # scaling up
H2O I look forward to learning more from you thank you James be sure to tune in
Next Friday for a brand new episode of scaling up H2O in the meantime I hope
you not only take care of your systems take care of yourself have a great week
folks SC app Nation are you getting ready to take your certified water technologist examination do you wish you
just had a little bit of extra help to build your confidence so you can sign up
for the exam well Nation I’ve heard you and I’ve got what you were asking for I
work each one of the 75 mock questions that you receive when you sign up to
take your certified water technologist designation I share with you the lot
behind how I get to certain answers and I show you how to set up each math
equation go to scaling up h2o.com cwt prep once again that’s scaling up
h2o.com cwt prep to get enroll
today