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Committee Profile: FSAWWA
This column highlights a committee, division, council, or other volunteer group of FSAWWA, FWEA, and FWPCOA.
Contaminants Committee
Affiliation: FSAWWA
Current chair: Rae Hafer, utility engineer, Gainesville Regional Utilities
Year group was formed: Early 2000s
Scope of work:
The committee provides information for water professionals on water quality. The original scope was on biological contaminants, but it has expanded to include biological, chemical, and best practices on multiple aspects of water quality. Topics include opportunities and challenges with drinking water, wastewater, and reclaimed water treatment and distribution.
I love what I do as chair because of the connections I make with the dedicated and talented professionals in our industry. These individuals make me feel like I am part of an extended water industry family. It’s a small world after all.
Recent accomplishments:
We provided webinars throughout the pandemic with no interruptions! We also created a dedicated website for our archived webinars and offered timely topics to viewers, including cybersecurity, flushing buildings after lockdown, monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, impacts of flushable wipes, and microbial-induced corrosion. The committee members also organized and successfully delivered virtual conference sessions on wastewater virus monitoring and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Current projects:
We continue to seek topics of interest to our audience for webinars and conferences.
Future work:
Provide additional information on our website to enhance interactive features in our webinars and continue hosting two PFASrelated webinars per year.
Group members:
S Rae Hafer, P.E., Gainesville Regional
Utilities (chair) S Amber Kiger, Hach S Iulia Siemen, P.E., Orange County Utilities S Ashlee Hollifield, P.E., Southwest Florida
Water Management District S Melanie Lasch, Veolia Water S Bina Nayak, Ph.D., (past chair, Technical and Education Council chair), Pinellas
County Utilities S
