Filtering Through the Options   Water & Wastes Digest August 2003   Elaine Floyd
The Watsonville Wastewater Treatment Facility currently pumps 400 gallons per minute through the Tekleen water filter manufactured by Automatic Filters in Los Angeles.

Nation's Largest AMR System Comes Online in DC   Water & Wastes Digest July 2003   Denise Covelli
Driven by the need to replace aging, inaccurate water meters, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) has spent the past 16 months implementing North America's largest water utility Fixed Network RF System, working with the team of ABB, United Metering and Hexagram

Conservation Agency Battles Erosion, Preserves Wetlands with Computer-Aided Design Tools   Water Engineering & Management April 2003   Chad Mills
In addition to monitoring soil quality and working with landowners to ensure environmentally sensitive farming and grazing practices, the Natural Resources Conservation Service restores wetlands to foster animal and plant life, reinforces stream banks and designs terraces to control flooding. The agency works to prevent runoff of sediments and animal wastes, and it builds dams to control the growth of gullies that have cut into the slope of a hill over the years.
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Remote Monitoring of Sewage Pump Stations   Water & Wastes Digest February 2003   Frank Pavlik
Remote status monitoring of lift stations can be provided at a lower cost than SCADA systems, resulting in a much shorter period for realizing full return on investment.

New Process Control System Encodes Unique Elements Of Process Engineers' Knowledge   Water & Wastes Digest January 2003   John Sheridan
Often, plant controls are nothing more than a controller connected to a dissolved oxygen (DO) probe, programmed by an installer that may know little about the actual process. The challenge is to design automation that provides real value to the user. Process knowledge and understanding of its control should be encoded into the software. The control system should enable the operator to get better performance than with a manual system. It should also bring knowledge otherwise unavailable to the operation of the plant.

Odor Control System   Water & Wastes Digest January 2003   Brent Howe
Odor complaints have become an all too familiar subject to WWTP managers. They are not only expected to manage their plants effectively and efficiently, meeting both regulatory specs and budget requirements – they are also expected to be good neighbors and keep odor under control. This article describes the successful odor control efforts of the South Dearborn Regional Sewer District located in Lawrenceburg, Ind.

New Analyzer Takes Readings During the Treatment Process   Water & Wastes Digest January 2003
A unique ammonia/phosphate analyzer designed to take readings directly in the wastewater, in other words, precisely where the nutrient concentration needs to be measured, also delivers real-time, online information about nutrient concentration in the process.

Profits in People: Training Helps Plants Fill Gaps   Water Engineering & Management October 2002
Spurred by European takeovers and other forms of privatization stressing efficiency and knowledge, U.S. water/wastewater companies are expanding training programs to fill gaps caused by plant closings, cost-cutting and downsizing. Whether they grow their training programs in-house, use outside vendors or a combination of the two, executives say they are able to do a better job filling skill shortages that ensure safer and more efficient plants and that comply with increasingly stringent government regulation.
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A Common Sense Approach to Design   Water Engineering & Management October 2002   Carter & Burgess, Inc.
When it comes to preliminary designing and engineering of wastewater facilities, it might seem like common sense to have owners and users integrally involved in the preliminary design process, but that is the exception, not the rule. However, some pioneering architecture and engineering firms are changing all of that. Best of all, this process can be applied in the water and wastewater industries.
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Routing Issues: From Paperwork to PDA Efficiency   Water Quality Products October 2002   Lorraine Keating, Prism Visual Software, Inc.
By now, handhelds have enjoyed enormous popularity in any industry that deals with deliveries, services or exchanges. The bottled water and water treatment industries are not an exception. PDAs enhance performance, accuracy and cost-efficiency.
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Automated Treatment, Monitoring System Keeps An Eye On Operations   Water & Wastes Digest September 2002
To make the most of its resources, including operator time and energy, Warrington Township Water and Sewer Department--located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania--installed a compact sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system when the facility was built four years ago. And an equally hardworking Hach OptiQuant SST Analyzer, installed two years ago, keeps a vigilant eye on the final product.

Controlling Hospital Grease, Sludge Discharges   Water & Wastes Digest September 2002
One of the major problem areas in St Petersburg, Florida has two hospitals and a nursing home that discharge to a common sewer line. Historically, the city had to clean this section of the sewer line at least four times a year to avoid blockages and sanitary sewer overflows. Working together, the city and one of the hospitals took action to control the discharge of grease from the hospital's facilities and to reduce the costs of maintenance for both the city and the hospital.

Keeping Meters On Line: Accurately Measuring Drinking Water and Sewage   Water Engineering & Management September 2002   Rodney Johnson
Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) has a high stake in keeping its flowmeters up and running with calibrated accuracy. This is especially true for its 278 wholesale water meters used in its vast network of distribution lines that serve 126 communities. It also is true for metering sewage inputs from wholesale customers for its Wastewater Treatment Plant. This article focuses on a unique answer that DWSD found for keeping its magnetic meters online by means of a portable electronic system that verifies and certifies calibration, all done in-line.
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The Invisible Sewage Plant   Water Engineering & Management September 2002   Carl Dorsch
If you go looking for a particular sewage treatment plant in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first thing you'll notice is--you might not notice it at all. In fact, you might drive right by the facility, dismissing it as just another office building. It just does not look like a treatment plant.
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The 6 Rules of Never: What a General Manager Must Know About Technology to Thrive   Water Engineering & Management August 2002   Alan Manning
You cannot apply technology without changing what people do or how they do it. The only way to get a return from technology is to have your staff specifically design a plan that involves all your utility's policies and procedures, assessing and modifying them to maximize the payback from integrated technology. This applies to utilities of any size. Technology must be implemented as a strategy to thrive, to grow and improve.
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Texas Utility Cuts Meter Reading Costs, Improves Efficiency with AMR   Water & Wastes Digest April 2002
The city of Pasadena, Texas, targeted a variety of objectives for improved customer service in meter reading. Pasadena’s primary goals were elimination of estimated water bills and minimized disruption for customers. But the city’s manual reading system was inefficient, especially where meters were remote or hard to access. The answer was a system that increased the efficiency of Pasadena’s water meter reading operations with a leap from a manual meter reading process to an automated meter reading (AMR) solution.

Cutting Grease With Ongoing Monitoring and Maintenance   Water Engineering & Management March 2002   James M. Russell
Grease is clogging sewers nationwide, creating a costly mess to clean up and a dilemma for officials and regulators. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that 75 percent of the sewer systems in the United States work at only half capacity because of grease clogs. The cost of keeping sewers open, a cost borne by taxpayers at a local level, is $25 billion per year. The increase in grease in sewer lines is a direct result of the phenomenal growth in dual-income households who choose to eat out or take-out rather than cook at home.
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System Enables Nitrate Measurement Directly In-Line   Water Engineering & Management January 2002
Unlike other nitrate measurement systems, there is no need for reagents, pumps or rigorous maintenance procedures.
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Pump Changeout Stops Fouling, Saves Energy   Water Engineering & Management January 2002
The pumps at the Stony Brook Lift Station in Suffolk County, N.Y. used to clog so often that crews anticipated an event as part of their weekly routine.
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Small Town Finds Big Technology Affordable   Water Engineering & Management November 2001   By Mary Turner
Rapid changes in technology make it vital for small utilities such as Wrightstown to update their systems. IPMC software components make it easy to update, integrate and expand the applications. Non-proprietary software helps ensure that data will be available and usable with existing or future system software. Data preservation in an open architecture format allows for data migration to other software applications as may be required when working with an engineering consultant.
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Microwave Propagation Helps Measure Sludge Density   Water Engineering & Management October 2001   John Hemphill
Measuring sludge density using microwave propagation can offer a high degree of accuracy even under the worst process conditions.
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AMR: An Asset Comes of Age   Water Engineering & Management August 2001   John Hengesh
Automatic meter reading has helped water utilities and municipalities solve numerous challengesand significantly reduce expenses.
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Using Variable Frequency Drives for Sewage Lift Stations   Water & Wastes Digest July 2001
High in the Pocono Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania, the small town of Tobyhanna was in need of a high head, small flow sewage lift pump.
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SCADA Keeps City in Fresh Water   Water Engineering & Management May 2001
The City of Blackfoot is a small town of 10,000 located in southeastern Idaho. Like many communities in the region, Blackfoot relies on a collection of wells for its drinking water.

Flexible Monitoring System Helps Ohio Company Meet Daily EPA Measurement Requirements   Water & Wastes Digest May 2001
An Ohio utility company provides water plant operator services to facilities throughout the state, including several very large travel center operations. Daily monitoring became time consuming and costly, so they sought a more efficient solution by investigating plant monitoring systems.
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Web-Based and Wireless REVOLUTIONS   Water Quality Products May 2001   Lorraine Keating, Prism Visual Software
The media predicts that virtually all work as we know it soon will be Web-based and wireless. With the proliferation of PDAs and cell phones, and with their continually decreasing costs, this statement is hard to refute. An article published in Software Technology magazine stated that to characterize this new technology as a "revolution" is an understatement. Rather it is a "cataclysmic change."
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E-Business   Water Quality Products April 2001   Dale B. Langefels, Crane Environmental
With so many water treatment technologies and ways to apply them, a major challenge to our industry is to develop online configurators that allow the user to select and order a system that best fits his specific needs.
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French Firms Create Better Ways of Monitoring and Controlling Drinking Water Quality   Water Engineering & Management March 2001
"We may not have any oil, but we have ideas!" This saying, common in France after the first oil shock in the 1970s and 1980s, has been transformed into tangible reality, particularly in the field of analysis and automation in the water industry.

Riding the Tides to Information Integration and Improved Performance   Water Engineering & Management March 2001   Paul Borzo
San Diego Water has taken a giant technological leap forward. It has gone from a 15-year-old monitoring system operating with tone telemetry on leased lines to a state-of-the-art supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system that integrates numerous technology systems throughout the enterprise.
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Automatic Samplers Designed to Improve Efficiency, Control   Water & Wastes Digest September 2000
ISOLOK® automatic samplers offered by Bristol Equipment Company in Yorkville, Illinois, draw measured portions of liquids or slurries on command from electrical or all-pneumatic controls. Actuated by a single compressed air cylinder, for greater safety in dusty or volatile environments, the sampler taps process streams moving through pipes or vessels pressurized up to 300 psi, as well as troughs or tanks.

New Company Offers Industrial Networking Services, Automation Control Designed to Boost Efficiency   Water & Wastes Digest August 2000
GE Cisco Industrial Networks, based in Charlottesville, Va., recently announced the availability of a full range of industrial networking services to support factory-to-enterprise communication, enabling manufacturers and other industrial operations to work more efficiently, productively and cost effectively.

Automation Online: Using the Internet for Control and Automation, Part 1   Water Quality Products May 1998   Kirt Phillips, Michael Gibson and Pim Little
Communications, with respect to control systems and automation, have traditionally been proprietary and closed.