Volume 5, Issue 8
Dean Amhaus of The Water Council
Driving Innovation in the Water Industry
September 2018
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DRIVING INNOVATION IN THE WATER INDUSTRY: AN INTERVIEW WITH DEAN AMHAUS, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE WATER COUNCIL
Contents
September 2018 Volume 5, Issue 8 5 Urban Improvements By Kris Polly 6 The Water Council: Driving Innovation in the Water Industry 14 WRDA Works for America’s Water Infrastructure by U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster
22 Staying on the Cutting Edge: An Interview With Tage Flint 26 Seamlessly Integrated: Calgary’s West District Central Park THE INNOVATORS 30 A Burst of Innovation: Charles Otis of Pulsed Burst Systems
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COVER PHOTO:
Dean Amhaus, President and CEO of The Water Council
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WATER COUNCIL.
16 Beautifying San Antonio’s San Pedro Creek: A Conversation With Jeffrey 34 Water Bottle Fill Stations Mitchell of HDR as Public Outreach: Lessons From Eastern Municipal Water District
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Urban Improvements
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his month’s edition of Municipal Water Leader puts the focus on how water management professionals are enriching our urban centers. In our cover story, we speak with Dean Amhaus of The Water Council. Over the last decade, Dean and his colleagues have turned Milwaukee into the Silicon Valley of water technology. Their headquarters, the Global Water Center, is a space where entrepreneurs, scientists, and businesspeople can come together, learn from each other, and establish connections. Tage Flint, the chief executive officer of Weber Basin Water Conservancy District in Utah and chair of the National Water Resources Association’s Municipal Caucus, recently toured The Water Council. He gives us the practitioner’seye view of the benefits The Water Council can bring in his conversation with us. Charles Otis of Pulsed Burst Systems gives us the innovator’s-eye view, speaking about how The Water Council has helped his company. We also speak to two engineers from HDR, Inc., about recent projects that join together engineering expertise and urban-planning sophistication. Jeffrey Mitchell speaks to us about the ongoing San Pedro Creek Improvements Project in San Antonio, Texas, a downtown renovation project that aims to return constant flow to the San Pedro Creek.
By Kris Polly Robby Bryant, discusses the development of West District Central Park in Calgary, Alberta, an urban park and public space that doubles as a stormwater management feature. Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Transportation and Infrastructure Committee shares his thoughts and perspectives on the America’s Water Infrastructure Act (PL 115-270), a legislative package that features the Water Resources Development Act of 2018. This legislation was signed into law by President Trump on October 23, 2018. An innovative program with potential for national application is California’s Eastern Municipal Water District’s water bottle filling stations. These installations allow the area’s citizens to appreciate the quality of Eastern’s municipal water as part of their daily routine. We hope you enjoy this issue of Municipal Water Leader magazine and find it helpful and inspiring. M Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com.
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February 23–28, 2019 Chile is one of the top 10 global agricultural exporters with a wide range of agricultural products. Of the 39 million acres devoted to agriculture in Chile, nearly 7 percent is irrigated. If you are interested in participating in our Irrigation Education Tour to Chile or sponsoring the tour, please contact Kris Polly at Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WATER COUNCIL.
The Global Water Center, The Water Council’s Milwaukee Headquarters. 6
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The Water Council: Driving Innovation in the Water Industry
Headquartered in the Global Water Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, next to the world’s largest freshwater system, The Water Council is a nonprofit organization that drives economic, technology, and talent development to support the global water industry. As the leading U.S. water technology cluster and one of the most powerful water technology hubs in the world, The Water Council convenes global water leaders and supports more than 180 members, including small and mid-sized businesses and large global corporations, engineers, entrepreneurs, utilities, government agencies, education programs, and nonprofits, with valuable services, programming, and networking opportunities. As The Water Council continues on its path of fostering innovation in the water industry, the organization has committed itself to being a driving force in the access and creation of cutting-edge water technology. Irrigation Leader’s editor in chief, Kris Polly, spoke with the president and chief executive officer of The Water Council, Dean Amhaus, about his organization’s history, mission, and vision for the future of the water technology business. Kris Polly: Please tell our readers about your background. Dean Amhaus: I only began to work in the water field in the last 10 years. My experience actually started out in the arts and theater. After a short stint in New York City and getting my MBA, I ended up in Washington, DC, working for a law firm that worked in the nonprofit world for both the arts and employment programs for people with disabilities. Arts and cultural programs brought me back to Madison, Wisconsin, to run the Wisconsin Arts Board. That then led to running the state’s 150th anniversary celebration back in 1998, and from there into economic development and marketing, which finally led me to Milwaukee, where I grew up. My path seems to make absolutely no sense at all, but it also was a great fit for what Rich Meeusen and Paul Jones were looking for when they were searching for somebody to run The Water Council. I had experience in government relations, nonprofit management, fundraising, and organizational management, all of which are critical for running The Water Council. When it comes to water expertise, we are fortunate here in Milwaukee to have a lot of really smart and talented people who we rely on as our experts. We are lucky to have people like Kevin Schaffer, whom I can call for expert advice. My job is simply to get all the people together and to connect them. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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Kris Polly: What is the history of The Water Council?
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gone through some challenges over time and, as a result, have become experts on drinking water, wastewater, and storm water. Through those challenges, they have garnered knowledge and created innovations. There is an openness to new technologies. We also discovered some world-class water academic programs, most notably at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Marquette University. Milwaukee is a hotbed of water technology, but for a long time, nobody realized it. All the ingredients were there, we just had to put it together and bake it. Now we have this. Kris Polly: What is the mission of The Water Council? Dean Amhaus: There are three principal things that we are interested in, and a fourth that has come in recently and that has enabled us to work across the United States as well as Canada. First, we want to help businesses in this region grow and expand. It is not that we are going to go and open up new markets for A. O. Smith, but what we can do is find talent and new technologies for them that may be key pieces in their larger puzzle. We also help entrepreneurs start up new companies. If we are successful in that, we will build a magnet for companies both in the United States and abroad that want to come here and grow and get plugged into a unique ecosystem. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WATER COUNCIL.
Dean Amhaus: On paper, it started about 10 years ago, but when talking about its origins, I really go back 150 years: It was the breweries in Milwaukee that sparked what today is Milwaukee's water technology industry. When Germans started brewing beer here because of the access to water and grain, they also needed suppliers for the pumps, valves, meters, and pipes to process the water and beer. The companies that supplied that technology started up, evolved, and grew, and eventually became companies like Badger Meter. We also had companies like the A.O. Smith Corporation, which started over 140 years ago in the automotive business making car frames, eventually moving into water heaters and water filters, and becoming a full water company. There was also a point about 50 years ago when Milwaukee, like lots of cities across the United States, had terrible pollution problems. The Clean Water Act really changed that. Existing manufacturers and suppliers had to change their practices, and new companies came along. It was a gradual process of growth, one that was not always apparent on the surface. Ten years ago, two things happened simultaneously, separatly from each other, and fortunately, we were able to connect and bring them together. Rich Meeusen from Badger Meter and Paul Jones from A.O. Smith, two large water companies that didn’t think of themselves as such, toured each other’s labs and realized that they were only 15 minutes apart from each other. They began to wonder if there were any other companies like theirs in the area. Through their own research, they found around 50. At the same time, the Milwaukee region was going through an economic development effort to get the seven surrounding counties to work in a more collaborative way, and through that process, they wanted to figure out what the region’s key industries were. Most of those industries were not big surprises. The one big surprise was that we had this water technology expertise, not only in the industry but also in academic programs. It was by great coincidence that Rich and Paul met up with Julia Taylor, who leads the Greater Milwaukee Committee, and saw their commonalities and joined forces. I was a volunteer early on in the regional development initiative, and there were a handful of us who got together and started hatching this stuff. It was all here, but we needed an entity to bring people together, whether they were from industry, technology, academia, nongovernmental organizations, or government, to all look at the incredible resource that we had and to start organizing ourselves and moving forward. The original list of 50 companies that we had assembled ended up expanding to be closer to 120 companies after some additional research was done. As we have continued to evolve, we are looking at close to 200 companies that are based in this region. We have strong utilities, which have
The Global Water Center's Flow Lab.
The fourth piece is our ongoing work with the Alliance for Water Stewardship. We are working with large industrial water users on a voluntary basis to improve their water usage, from both a quality and a quantity standpoint. A growing number of industrial users are realizing that they have to take action themselves to improve their water usage to solve problems caused by water shortages or too much water. These voluntary water standards help them move in that direction. This allows us to work with utilities all around the country and extend our reach. Kris Polly: What can you tell our readers about BREW?
Second, our economic and talent-development role is designed to connect the people who are coming out of the universities with companies who are looking for talent, frequently through internships. For example, we know that there are very few African-Americans in the water business, and we wanted to do something small to start to change that. This last summer, we worked with Tuskegee University to bring five junior engineering students to Milwaukee, none of whom had ever been here before, and get them plugged into internships. Two of them went with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, our water reclamation facility, and the other three with private companies for 10 weeks. It was a great experience for them; now they are looking at water as a career option. Those are the kinds of things that we are looking at in growing the talent base. The third goal really gets into technology acceleration. We don’t do research and development ourselves, but we want to connect entrepreneurs and universities with businesses to accelerate technological advances. We look at that through the whole technology-readiness spectrum, from the early to the late stages. That late-stage support is something that we just announced a few weeks ago with the Tech Challenge. Those three principal areas of focus—business development, talent development, and tech acceleration—have to work in unison. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Dean Amhaus: BREW stands for Business, Research, and Entrepreneurship in Water. We are going into our sixth year with this program. In this program, we find up to six companies per year—entrepreneurs and small businesses with a unique solution, that are at an early stage in their development and need a little bit of business training, organizational development, or help with their marketing or strategic plan. We do a competition and then we bring them into the Global Water Center for 3½ months to help them with all of that skill development and to help them pilot their new technologies. Our hope is that they grow their new businesses here and become more successful. We make financial investments as well, but that is not what is most important to these companies—it’s the value of being part of an ecosystem. The most significant thing is that they can call us up and ask us to connect them to someone. When we were getting started, Rich Meeusen talked about how he went to Israel and sat in a room and over the course of a day saw 13 different companies. He said that to see that in the United States, he would have to go to 13 different cities; he wanted to have a place where the companies would come to him. We have that now. We host a wide variety of companies here, and we can put on a session where we can present 15 or 20 of them all at once: They can describe their technology, outline what they are doing to build their business, and explain how someone may be able to work with them. Kris Polly: Please talk about the building that you are in and how that came into existence. Dean Amhaus: That is an important part of the story. The Global Water Center literally keeps us grounded. The idea for it goes back to November 2010. The thought was that if we were going to do all the economic, talent, and technology development I mentioned before, we didn’t want it spread throughout the region. At the end of the day people want to go and see something first-hand. We may live in an age of social media, but people still want to speak face-to-face. That is why we built the Global Water Center as an anchor to bring together industry, utilities, and academia under one roof.
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The Global Water Center's Oasis Co-Working Community.
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possibility, and as a field where they can participate in solving problems. Any way we can help them or our companies is really exciting. Kris Polly: What is your message to municipal water suppliers? How can they get involved, and what can you do for them? Dean Amhaus: We are open to working with any and all. I think we are looking for utilities that are open to innovation. That is significant. I do not think that it is a secret that utilities are slow to adopt new technologies. The industry and consumers want to move a lot faster. So do industrial suppliers. We do not have time; the problem is too serious. We are looking for utilities, whether they be in a desert, on a mountain, or in a flood area, that are willing to partner up, especially when it comes to growing new technologies. We had a French company here that was working on a solar water cleaning technology, and we said to them, “Milwaukee is not the best place for that from a solar standpoint, we think you should be working in Arizona.” We called up folks that we knew down there to do the pilots. The company had their offices here but was able to work elsewhere. What we are looking for are utilities, directors, and leaders who are open to those new innovations and who are also looking for solutions. Our connections and matchmaking may help find them some answers. M To learn more about The Water Council, visit its website at https://thewatercouncil.com/. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WATER COUNCIL.
The building is not as much a research or office building as it is a business accelerator. There are a lot of business accelerators around the world that are focused on small businesses and entrepreneurs. In that type of accelerator, the only thing the companies based there have in common is that they are small. We wanted to do the same thing, but with an exclusive focus on water. That way, you know that the person in the elevator with you is working in the same field. We also thought that there was value in bringing in big companies, utilities, and academic programs, because those are the people entrepreneurs need to work with. The academic programs are the ones coming up with the research and development and the new talent. We have succeeded in creating that in this building. There is a wide range of entities, but everyone is focused on water. It truly has become global: Right now, we have companies here from Mexico, Australia, Ireland, and Canada. We have had some from France in the past, and we are talking with companies from Germany and the Netherlands that are looking to come into the United States via Milwaukee. It is an exciting time, and I think part of the reason it is happening is that there is a greater awareness in the United States of our water challenges. For way too long, we just never thought about it, and as a result, we have run into issues, whether it is too much water or too little. I think that there is a growing awareness of the challenge. Frankly, from my perspective, water is exciting for a lot of young people. They see it as a great career option. It was great to see those five students from Tuskegee University I mentioned—really smart, bright young people—getting excited about working at the water reclamation facility. It is encouraging that the next generation sees water as a career
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WRDA Works for America’s Water Infrastructure By U.S. Congressman Bill Shuster
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PHOTO COURTESY OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE.
n October 23, 2018, the president signed into law through a U.S. port or along a portion of our 12,000 miles the America’s Water Infrastructure Act, a legislative of navigable waterways. Furthermore, domestically grown package that features the Water Resources or produced goods from every state, including grain, coal, Development Act (WRDA) of 2018. iron, steel, petroleum, and more, move by water, much of The enactment of WRDA 2018 marked the third such it in foreign trade. Shipping cargo by waterway is efficient bill signed into law since I became chairman of the House and also significantly reduces the strain on our congested Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in 2013. highways. I am particularly proud of the fact that one of my earliest The importance of our water infrastructure was recently priorities as chairman—returning Congress to the regular underscored in other ways as well. Congress utilized the 2016 consideration of a WRDA every 2 years—came to fruition WRDA law to authorize funds to address the deteriorating over the last 6 years. drinking water infrastructure in Flint, Michigan. These laws authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Furthermore, in light of the widespread devastation caused to study and undertake infrastructure by natural disasters in 2017, it is worth enhancements that strengthen noting that the Army Corps operates our economy, connect and protect and maintains approximately 700 dams our communities, and bolster our in the United States, and that over competitiveness abroad. 14,000 miles of levees are in the Corps’s Our WRDAs were approved with Levee Safety Program. Millions of overwhelming bipartisan support Americans and over a trillion dollars’ because they authorize essential worth of property and goods are infrastructure that all Americans and protected by these levees. businesses rely upon—the ports, dams, Another example of why WRDA inland waterways, water systems, works is that the 2014, 2016, and ecosystem restoration, flood protection 2018 laws authorized both water systems and more. resources and flood risk management Prior to 2014, Congress failed to pass improvements around the country, from a WRDA for 7 years, allowing plans California to Texas to Florida, and in Congressman Bill Shuster. for water infrastructure upkeep and many states and regions in between. modernization to sit on the shelf while These cost-effective improvements will their costs increased with each passing year of inaction. help improve the management of our nation’s water resources Thanks to a return to regular order, WRDA now works and protect people, industries, and infrastructure from for America. Here are just a few examples of why WRDA harmful flooding. In general, every dollar invested in flood works. protection provides eight dollars in economic benefit. Since 2014, Congress has authorized harbor deepenings The Army Corps’s missions are vital, but the agency can and improvements at the Ports of Savannah, Jacksonville, be notoriously slow. In each of our WRDA laws, we included Charleston, and Galveston, as well as inland waterway provisions targeted at steadily improving the Corps’s improvements on the Ohio and Arkansas Rivers. The Port efficiency and further expediting the project delivery process. of Savannah deepening is now 50 percent complete and will There are many other examples of why WRDA works, allow the port to attract the world’s largest container ships. and I look forward to the House Transportation and The Jacksonville project began in February 2018 and will Infrastructure Committee and Congress continuing to allow the port to triple the amount of its container business send these bipartisan infrastructure bills to the president every year. Army Corps reforms are allowing Charleston and every 2 years. M other projects to move ahead more rapidly and at lower cost. These are not local projects. Whether you live in Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA) is the Chairman of the House Manhattan, New York, or Manhattan, Kansas, many of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. goods you use every day find their way to you after traveling
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Fireworks at the San Pedro Creek Culture Park.
Beautifying San Antonio’s San Pedro Creek: A Conversation With Jeffrey Mitchell of HDR
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Tyler Young: Please tell us about your background and how you became involved with the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project. Jeffrey Mitchell: Interestingly for an article in a municipal water publication, my background is in structural engineering. I received my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. After that, I went to work for a local engineering and architecture firm in San Antonio, which soon became part of the HDR Engineering, Inc., family, and I practiced structural engineering with a focus on civil works. I primarily worked on water and wastewater infrastructure projects for the first 15 years of my career. I was mostly technically focused on civil and infrastructure projects and worked in several of the HDR offices across the nation. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HDR.
an Antonio, Texas, is famous for its urban River Walk development along the San Antonio River, which was completed in 2014. A few years ago, local authorities decided to pursue a similar revitalization project for another downtown waterway, the San Pedro Creek. As of 2018, the ambitious San Pedro Creek Improvements Project is only partly complete, but it already includes 4,000 feet of accessible walkways, murals by local artists, benches, and infrastructural components. In this interview with Municipal Water Leader writer Tyler Young, Jeffrey Mitchell, HDR’s senior project manager for the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project, speaks about the genesis of the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project, the special challenges of an urban project of this nature, and how to stay motivated throughout the course of such an extensive project.
In the early 2000s, 2011. A professional engineering study and report were when I moved back launched. HDR was not a part of that, but when the to San Antonio final design for the San Pedro Creek Project came out from the eastern for proposal in late 2013, we became involved. The San United States, I Antonio River Authority was pleased with the work we began work on an had done on the Museum Reach projects, so they requested important series of HDR’s involvement in the San Pedro Creek Improvements local projects for the Project, and I was fortunate to be a part of that. San Antonio River Authority. These Tyler Young: What sparked the need for the were an expansion San Pedro Creek Improvements Project? and extension of what is commonly Jeffrey Mitchell: To understand that, you have called the downtown to understand the history of San Antonio and the River Walk. To us, community’s psyche. As long as people have been it was called the gathered and organized here in San Antonio, there Jeffrey Mitchell of HDR. Museum Reach of has been interest and passion for the local waterways. the San Antonio When the first Spanish explorers came, they were River and encompassed both the Urban and Park taken by the quality and opportunities provided by Segments. The Urban Segment involved extending linear the San Pedro Creek and the San Antonio River. park amenities along the San Antonio River about 1⅓ The San Pedro Creek was the first waterway that was miles from where they had stopped in the downtown area recorded in the accounts of the early Spanish explorers. back in the 1930s. This area of the San Antonio River had Of course, there were local indigenous people arranged essentially become a forgotten drainage around the waterways before the Spanish “As long as people ditch and was not fully developed. When arrived because water was a life-giving construction on the project finished in have been gathered necessity in an otherwise hot, dry, central May 2009, we had improved flood control, and organized here Texas landscape. The early Spanish expanded linear park amenities, improved settlers dug ditches or acequias off the in San Antonio, there public access, and allowed riverboats to waterways that conveyed the spring-fed travel from the downtown area to the has been interest and water out for public use for things like Pearl redevelopment. This sparked a lot of passion for the local crop irrigation. Punctuated throughout excitement in the San Antonio community. the history of the city were also major waterways.” At the beginning of the project, I was the flood events. The area is flat, so during structural engineer, but due to internal — Jeffrey Mitchell large rain events, the San Antonio River, staffing changes I found myself in charge the San Pedro Creek, and other tributaries of most of the engineering design and management for the would flood violently, inundating major portions of project. This marked a transition for me from the purely the inhabited area and causing destruction. As a result, technical focus of structural engineering to the broader gradual deepening and widening measures have been scope of design team and project management. But my undertaken to insulate the habitations of the city from the roots were still structural. The Park Segment projects floods. As the city grew, people shifted to groundwater continued to extend accessible trails and amenities from as a more reliable and safer source of public water. This the end of the Urban Segment up into Breckenridge increasing shift to groundwater eventually caused the Park. Construction wrapped up around 2014. springs to flow less or even to dry up for periods of time. As these projects were winding through to completion, Today, water remains a big topic in the central Texas our client, the San Antonio River Authority, working as area. While San Antonio still relies mostly on groundwater, project manager for Bexar County, continued its mission we do harvest, transfer, inject, and store groundwater of river improvements by launching the San Pedro Creek between aquifers as a way to even out the demand between Improvements Project. The goals of this project were groundwater sources. We have also begun to increasingly similar to those of the Museum Reach projects—flood treat and use brackish groundwater that was previously control, linear park-like amenities, local art, water quality not used for municipal water supply. In San Antonio, improvement, pedestrian connectivity, and economic there is a day-by-day inventory of the level of the Edwards development—but were applied to a different historic aquifer to help govern the local water supply and manage waterway in downtown San Antonio, and with a very drought restrictions. Due to the Wastewater Treatment different artistic vision. The San Pedro Creek Project and Reuse Program, the San Antonio River also benefits started to be a local conversation around 2010 and from a reliable source of water to ensure perennial flow MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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The San Pedro Creek in downtown San Antonio.
through the city. As a result, there is a dedicated minimum amount that always keeps flowing along the San Antonio watershed. This flow helps keep the River Walk alive. Similarly, the San Pedro Creek only flows when San Pedro Springs are high, which these days is not very often—this year being an exception. The San Pedro Creek does join up with the San Antonio River downstream of the downtown area of the city. Since the San Pedro Springs are now intermittent and unreliable, without perennial flow, people had more or less turned away from the San Pedro Creek in terms of development and focus. The creek became more of a divide and a separation within the community, rather than an attraction to pull people in and together. Really, the genesis of the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project was to revitalize that whole corridor, filling it with water to make it a park where the people of San Antonio would come to walk and gather and be inspired and refreshed.
Jeffrey Mitchell: One of the big challenges we have faced has been in the area of funding. Locally, in 2013, Bexar County was generous enough to fund $125 million
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HDR.
Tyler Young: Would you tell us about some of the challenges the project has faced?
of the initially estimated project cost of $150 million to lead us into the final design. Unfortunately, by the 40 percent design milestone, the cost of accomplishing all the important project goals along the full, 2.2-mile-long project corridor was identified to be significantly more. That reality has set up a schedule and scope interaction that persists to this day and will continue until everything is finished. One of the first responses to the budget reality was to divide the single project into a series of four linear phases, to be completed sequentially, as funding remains or becomes identified. The initially committed funding has been applied to the more urban area upstream, designated as phase 1, and design and construction has been working its way downstream. Phase 1 has now been further divided into three subphases, 1.1 through 1.3. Phase 1.1 is about a half-mile long and starts at the upstream beginning of the project—the inlet to the underground flood bypass tunnel—and extends a little more than three city blocks south. Phase 1.1 was fully constructed and functional by San Antonio’s tricentennial celebration on May 5 of this year. This half-mile stretch includes almost 4,000 linear feet of accessible walkway; four impressive tile murals featuring the work of local artists; 38 benches adorned with custom tile designs;
one crest gate and control building, which is concealed surface elevations, which also accommodate the peak as a locally inspired gatehouse art feature; five bioswales; flows of storm and flood events without exceeding the and an award-winning array of trees and other native creek banks. The water surface control is accomplished landscaping. It is impressive and has been well received. with hydraulically actuated, bottom-hinged steel crest Another challenge the project has needed to overcome gates, similar to the gates installed in the Museum Reach is a tight project corridor—the creek has and elsewhere in the city. These gates fold been there since the founding of the city, down during storm and flood events to “The creek has and the city has grown up close to its get out of the way and then automatically been there since banks. Therefore, the project corridor is rise to recapture the desired water surface the founding of the profile as the storm flows recede. The tight and runs through the most historic areas of downtown. All construction has city, and the city has constant creek flow is accomplished by to respect antiquities-code requirements taking advantage of pumping infrastructure grown up close to its regarding archeological monitoring and already in place as part of the underground banks.” impacts to historic infrastructure. This flood control tunnel constructed under tight project corridor is also packed — Jeffrey Mitchell the authorization of the U.S. Army Corps with existing utilities that have had to of Engineers in the 1980s. We’ve had to be carefully worked around or relocated augment the water supply accessible to as the creek has been both widened and deepened San Pedro Creek by creating a pumped, underground to accomplish both the flood control and pedestrian cross-connection to the San Antonio River and ensuring access. When complete, the flood-control goal for the that a sufficient supply of reuse water is available for project is to take 25–30 acres out of the current 100-year both tributaries in the watershed. Supplying water to the floodplain. This flood control goal will make development creek in this way helps insulate its flow from the drought possible on land that is currently within the floodplain. restrictions that are an annual reality in San Antonio. Another critical aspect of the project is maintaining I mentioned the constrained right of way earlier. The a constant flow of water at carefully controlled water construction process, including getting construction MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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A mural by the San Pedro Creek in downtown San Antonio.
It is important to be able to look past the grind of the daily project challenges and focus on what the project will do. Often this is hard to do. So sometimes over the course of the San Pedro Creek design, when I was travelling and away from home, I would take myself back to the Museum Reach and have dinner at one of the eateries that grew up along it, to remind myself of the benefits that were to come. Expecting the unexpected is also key. As engineers, we want to have things carefully choreographed, but on projects like these highly urban river improvements adventures, things seldom happen according to the original script. Being nimble and responsive and delivering quality service in an ever-changing environment is important. Keep the focus on what can be done from where you are. In terms of management, I think it also helps to be curious, interested, and engaged in the minor details. I have certainly learned so much outside my original area of structural engineering through the projects that I have served on. Keeping that curiosity, learning, understanding, and broader interest has been important for me. M
Tyler Young: What advice do you have for your peers?
You can reach Jeffrey Mitchell at jeff.mitchell@hdrinc.com. For more information about this project, visit spcculturepark.com.
Jeffrey Mitchell: I think in the context of my career, I have learned to try to keep the bigger picture of the broader benefits for the community at the forefront.
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HDR.
equipment down in the channel of an active creek that flows significantly every time it rains in the watershed, is a challenge, to say the least. We have tight constraints for getting in and deepening down the riverbed. The city has been built over centuries, so the level of existing conditions that need to be navigated around, discovered, and rediscovered is staggering. Storm drainage systems and other elements of infrastructure are not always where you expect them to be. When you discover where they really are, the design has to respond to that. Another significant challenge has been time. The initial vision for this project was to have all 2.2 miles completed for the city’s tricentennial on May 5, 2018. Everyone realized after the first few months of the project that this goal was not feasible. After that, the challenge was to maintain focus on a significant core portion of the project that could be completed by the tricentennial. That portion eventually became phase 1.1, which was opened and commemorated on time on May 5. This was a huge project success.
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Staying on the Cutting Edge: A Conversation With Tage Flint
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rom scientific discoveries about harmful algae and invasive species to technical advances in materials and machinery, the municipal water world is always changing. Yet for municipal water district managers tasked with the weighty job of providing water to hundreds of thousands of users, it is difficult to stay up-to-date on all these changes. Tage Flint, the chair of the National Water Resources Association (NWRA) Municipal Caucus, recently took part in an NWRA tour of the Water Council’s headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The tour provided a valuable chance to get ahead of the curve on upcoming technologies as well as to provide feedback to the researchers and entrepreneurs at the council. In an interview with Kris Polly, editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader, Tage Flint spoke about how institutions like The Water Council can help busy water district managers stay on the cutting edge and the value the NWRA Municipal Caucus brings to its members. Kris Polly: Please tell us about yourself and your organization. Tage Flint: Personally, I am a registered professional engineer with an MBA, and professionally, I am general manager and CEO of Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, which serves five counties in northern Utah with a population of 680,000. We’re primarily a wholesaler of a range of water types, from drinking water (which we wholesale to 60 cities and districts) to agricultural irrigation water, to a lot of industrial and urban irrigation water. We operate a federal Bureau of Reclamation water project that includes seven major dams and reservoirs in northern Utah on two river systems. Kris Polly: Recently you participated in an NWRA tour of The Water Council in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tell us a little about the purpose of the tour and what you thought about it. Tage Flint: The tour was an opportunity for water industry folks to see innovation at the ground floor. Much of the time, we are busy with our own day-to-day work, and it is difficult to spend time learning about the development of the technology in our industry. The tour allowed us to see where technology is headed, and where new upstart companies might be focused. We are always interested in new products coming out, but there’s often a delay of several years between the research and development of a product and its availability on the market. That doesn’t give us a good picture of what’s being developed.
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It was interesting to find out that there are places now that encourage new technology in the water industry, which hasn’t been true to the same degree in the past. The center in Milwaukee has focused its entire process on the water industry, which I find encouraging. There is a broad spectrum of water technology being developed, and we saw most of that range in this research center. On one end of that range, we could talk about drinking water quality, which would be in the realm of algotoxins, algae growth, early detection, and elimination of certain species in our waterways. All that relates to the ultimate quality of our drinking water in most every drinking water system in the country that uses surface water. The other end of that range could be the research on new mechanical systems that help aerate our water supply. We were encouraged by some of the research being done on invasive species such as quagga mussels, which we think will inevitably spread to all areas of the western United States and are certainly in many of the major waterways already. That’s a major infrastructure issue for most of us. Quagga mussel infestations affect our water reservoirs, intakes, pumps, pump stations, canals, and the like, and increase our end costs. That a research institution has partnered with the university to do work on learning about the species, its characteristics, and ultimately, how to eradicate it is hugely valuable. We’re encouraged that there are people working on that research. Kris Polly: This tour came about because Mr. Dean Amhaus was a guest speaker during the NWRA’s Municipal Caucus in Park City this past summer, and he invited us to go on a tour, an offer you accepted. What would you say to your fellow caucus members about the value of going to The Water Council? Would you encourage them to go on their own? Tage Flint: I would encourage them to go on their own to see it, or, if they’re interested, we could always arrange for another joint visit at a future date. First, a visit would allow them to appreciate the work being done at the cutting edge of their industry, and second, it would allow them to provide input regarding the industry’s needs. I think we can help them as much as they us in pointing out what kinds of needs the actual operators of water systems have. Kris Polly: Would you talk a little about the NWRA municipal caucus, its members, and who you would encourage to join?
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Tage Flint: The Municipal Caucus has been an integral part of the membership for a long time. I joke that it is the growth industry within the NWRA as populations continue to increase, sometime at breakneck rates, especially in the western United States. We are becoming more and more of an urban water supplier. Municipalities’ drinking-water systems and urban water-delivery systems are becoming more of our reality every day. As we have common issues related to the municipal water world, and since we have been involved with the NWRA for a time, I think it gives us the position to make meaningful comments back in DC, and to the U.S. Enviornmental Protection Agency and other organizations that deal with municipal water. Kris Polly: What else would you like to add? Tage Flint: I’d like to add some encouragement to join the NWRA Municipal Caucus. Anyone who is interested in the municipal side or is a wholesaler to municipal water suppliers can gain insight there. The caucus is valuable for the agencies that are working on both ends of the spectrum. The NWRA gives us the range and focus and recognition to be a meaningful player in the national dialogue. M For more information about Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, visit https://weberbasin.com. For more information about the NWRA, visit http://www.nwra.org.
Tage Flint, Chair of the National Water Resources Association’s Municipal Caucus.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAGE FLINT.
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A rendering of the future West District Central Park.
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Seamlessly Integrated: Calgary’s West District Central Park
H
DR, Inc., recently designed the Historic Fourth Ward Park in Atlanta, Georgia—a popular community gathering space that can also capture nearly 7 million gallons of storm water runoff, thus forming an important part of Atlanta’s water infrastructure. Word about the innovative park design spread all the way to Calgary, Alberta, where a local developer contacted HDR to ask for its help in creating a similar feature in a mixed-use development near the downtown area. In this interview with Municipal Water Leader writer Tyler Young, Robby Bryant, HDR’s planning and landscape architecture discipline leader, tells us about how he brought the lessons of the Fourth Ward Park northward, and adapted them for the needs and climate of his client in Calgary.
and design the park to be the heart and centerpiece of the development’s urban center. Principles of resiliency helped guide the design, which resulted in active park spaces that are rarely affected by storm events. The 8-acre park is organized around a central lake that provides storm water storage for the West District development. Fountains, boardwalks, overlooks, and plantings transform the lake from storm water infrastructure to an impressive park centerpiece. Program elements, such as a wintertime ice rink, a performance venue, and a restaurant, were given prominent placement in the park design to help provide activities for all seasons and make it a year-round destination.
Tyler Young: Please tell us about West District Central Park.
Tyler Young: What are some of the lessons that you are applying to this park?
Robby Bryant: West District Central Park is a planned urban park in west Calgary that marries public open space with storm water management to create a recreational destination for the surrounding community. The park is located within West District, an 84-acre master-planned development that is envisioned as a high-density, mixeduse, compact, and transit-supportive neighborhood. HDR collaborated with developer Truman Development Corporation, CivicWorks Planning + Design, Urban Systems, S2 Architecture, and the City of Calgary to plan
Robby Bryant: Long-term maintenance is always a concern when designing storm water parks. One way to minimize maintenance efforts is to limit or carefully select the program elements that are placed within the inundation zone. Walkways, boardwalks, and hardscape elements are resilient and may not require additional attention following storm events; however, certain plantings, walls, water features, lawn spaces, and playgrounds may require extra resources or time to clean up.
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A rendering of the projected park.
Another aspect of maintenance is understanding which personnel will be responsible for maintaining the facility following completion. In most cases, maintenance tasks are shared between Water Resources and the Parks Department. It is important to design a facility that allows existing staff to perform familiar maintenance activities using proven techniques. Providing a maintenance schedule with a list of seasonal tasks is critically necessary for the long-term success of the park. Tyler Young: How do you see the park developing, and what is the general outlook for it? Robby Bryant: West District Central Park will provide an unprecedented impact in implementing the Calgary City Council’s Smart Growth goals. As part of the planned urban center, the park design is forward thinking and multifunctional, integrating people spaces with storm water management and natural landscape. The result is a seamlessly integrated park and storm water management facility that provides a unique and dynamic public open space within the vibrant West District urban development. Tyler Young: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became involved with HDR? Robby Bryant: My first job after school was for a local architecture firm in Atlanta. Most of the work we did
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back then included park and trail design in small towns throughout Georgia. About 15 years ago, I joined HDR and was brought in on some larger-scale projects throughout the Southeast and Midwest. Working for a larger company provides unique opportunities to explore and make use of the vast amount of available resources. It wasn’t long before our team of landscape architects was collaborating with environmental engineers and water resources staff on green infrastructure work in parks. We have continued to leverage opportunities by working with other experts within the company; this has opened doors for our efforts on several integrated, multi-functional projects. Tyler Young: Do you have any words of wisdom to those in the industry? Robby Bryant: One thing that we try to encourage on our projects is cross-discipline collaboration. It is important to understand the different priorities that each team member values for success of the project. Understanding these issues leads to creative design solutions that bring multiple benefits. M Robby Bryant is the planning and landscape architecture discipline leader for HDR. He can be reached at robby.bryant@hdrinc.com. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
An aerial view of the projected park.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF OF. S2 S2 ARCHITECTURE. ARCHITECTURE
Boardwalks, overlooks, and plantings will make the West District Central Park into a centerpiece of the projected development.
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THE INNOVATORS An air bubble created by Pulsed Burst Systems’ MegaBubble device.
A Burst of Innovation: Charles Otis of Pulsed Burst Systems
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ulsed Burst Systems is a Milwaukee-based startup that has developed a simple yet effective device called the MegaBubble that creates large air bubbles that can be used to mix large quantities of water or even pump water through a pipe. With help from The Water Council in Milwaukee and its BREW business accelerator program, Pulsed Burst is finding potential clients across the country, including wastewater treatment plants and municipal water districts. Charles Otis, chief operating officer of Pulsed Burst Systems, spoke with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about his background in the water industry, his company, and what the U.S. water industry could do to boost innovation. Joshua Dill: Please tell us about yourself, your background, and how you ended up in your current work.
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHARLES OTIS.
Charles Otis: I went to the University of Minnesota and got a degree in child psychology. The field wasn’t a good fit for me, and after working a stint as a loan officer, I moved home to Madison and got a degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, focusing on wastewater from the beginning. My dad was prominent in wastewater treatment, so I was familiar with the field. I got my degree at the depths of the recession, making figuring out my next step difficult, until in 2011 I got an opportunity to move to Norway to pursue a master’s degree in environmental technology.
I moved over there at the beginning of 2012 and started school. The education was quite good, and free, and I got to be involved with several different companies. I worked with Salsnes Filter for my master’s on a project called Slam til Energi (which translates to sludge to energy). I then worked for a consulting firm called Aquateam, which is now Aquateam COWI. Through Aquateam, I worked for several different companies on all sorts of different projects. My job ended up being to set up pilot systems designed to test out different theories and independently test out technology; I was building a lot of things with PVC and plastic, with data collection, controls, and automation. I also consulted with a company called Biowater, which makes moving bed bioreactors (MBBRs). One of our projects, which was called continuous flow, intermittent cleaning, involved cleaning MBBR biomedia by using air to bump off the biomasses that had collected on them. It was difficult to do effectively because of the nature of the experiments: There was a very high fill percentage of this plastic media. We had to fluidize the bed in order to let the air get enough momentum to move the media and clean it. That stayed in the back of my mind. I’d do it differently now. At the end of 2015, I moved back to Wisconsin for family reasons; I chose Milwaukee specifically because of The Water Council and because it was close to home in Madison. I ended up working for a bacillus manufacturer just south of Milwaukee where I did research on a couple
THE INNOVATORS of biological systems, looking for novel bacteria. I built lab-scale pilot devices out of PVC in a lab. It was fun, but I was more interested in the physical workings of the systems than the biology itself. Just when I was thinking of moving on to a new job, I got a call from Ken Neu, a friend of Bjørn Rusten, who I had worked for on many projects while at Aquateam in Norway—it turns out he lives near Eau Claire half the year because he married an American woman. Ken had got hold of some intellectual property for this bubble device, and he and his business partner asked if I would join them to be their representative in The Water Council’s Business, Research, and Entrepreneurship in Water (BREW) program and work toward equity in the company. It was perfect timing—kind of serendipitous. The bubble device technology made me think of my work with Biowater, and I thought that it might work well to mix the sorts of things I had had trouble mixing in the past. I came up with a novel way to build the mixers with economics in mind. That was all made possible through the BREW program. They supplied us with some money and put us through classes designed to turn engineers into entrepreneurs. They’ve been putting us in front of lots of different people to present our tool and the various applications in wastewater management it could be used for. That’s actually how I ended up meeting Shane Leonard of the Roosevelt Water Conservation District. He and several others, who I think were all associated with the National Water Resources Association, came to Milwaukee for a tour of The Water Council. We, as startups, were given an opportunity to pitch our products to the group. Frankly, I wasn’t all that excited about it, since it didn’t really seem like it was a market we’d have much luck in. I mentioned that we were able to mix large volumes of water with our mixers, and that if you put a pipe on top of one of our mixers, it turns into a pump that can pump sediment, using nothing more than a small blower. The airless pump is a relatively old technology, but using a large bubble is an efficient way of mixing and pumping, and it is cost effective because it doesn’t need high pressures. I offered to show a few people, Shane included, a small demo I had in my office after the presentation. They were impressed by how simple the technology was and wanted to discuss it further. Joshua Dill: Tell us about the company you work for today. Charles Otis: The company I work for is called Pulsed Burst Systems. There are three of us, Ken and me and a silent partner, plus a couple of people who give us indispensable help. We’ve been in business for about a year and a half: We started with the BREW program last August. We started out with the technology and no concrete way to market it, but we’ve been learning with the BREW program, and The Water Council has been putting us in front of people to pitch our ideas to in the larger water community. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Charles Otis, the chief operating officer of Pulsed Burst Systems.
Right now we’re small, but we’re making really cool stuff. We have a pilot at a wastewater treatment plant in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where we’ve turned an aerobic zone into an anaerobic zone using air, though that might seem counterintuitive. We’re able to use air the plant already uses to aerate the activated sludge, mixing it anaerobically instead of using electric motors or mixers, and without introducing much oxygen to the water. That is the niche we have found on the wastewater side of things. Joshua Dill: Would you explain, in layman’s terms, the physics of the MegaBubble device? Charles Otis: Sure. It uses an accumulator—basically an airtight, upside-down dome, which you can pump air into. It has one outlet: a hole near the bottom of the dome. You fill up the vessel with air that is just over the pressure of the water at that depth, and once it reaches a certain point, all the air is evacuated out of that hole as water rushes back in to replace the volume. There are no moving parts. It functions on two different principles: pressure and a siphon effect. One way to think of it is as an upside-down toilet. It works just like the siphon on your toilet: When you flush, the water gets going down the pipe and creates a vacuum that pulls down the rest of the water. The air works in a similar way, just the opposite. When the air is released, it creates a big bubble. That bubble has velocity gradients that pull water behind it, as well as displacement effects that create eddies as the bubble rises through the column. So it is a simple small pump that is pretty effective at mixing. What we’ve found is that the radius of its area of influence is roughly the same as the depth of the pump. If it’s 15 feet deep, it has roughly a 15-foot radius of influence. If you put a pipe on top of the outlet and direct the bubble into it, the bubble creates an air piston in the pipe with a siphon effect. The water isn’t able to get around the bubble because of its speed and because of the cohesive forces. The siphon effect pushes water out of the pipe and sucks water
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THE INNOVATORS up from the bottom. We can pump water effectively just by using air. The force is great enough that we can pump solids as well. It’s a neat tool. Joshua Dill: You mentioned that wastewater treatment was one possible use of your tool. Are there other potential applications for municipal water districts?
our accumulators, but over time you can pump quite a bit of water with what you’re already using. This may not be something that a large plant needs, but its simplicity makes it attractive for decentralized systems. Joshua Dill: Please tell us a little about your work with the Roosevelt Water Conservation District in Arizona.
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHARLES OTIS.
Charles Otis: Mixing is one of the big ones. There’s Charles Otis: So far, it’s very preliminary. We’ve only been evidence that we can increase the efficiency of aeration by talking. It looks like in December or January I will go out using a large bubble in conjunction with aeration devices. there and see what they have and how we might be able There’s also pumping. to help. They have large pumps that go down into sumps, One of the things we’re but in low flow times, apparently looking at is de-icing marinas the silt and sand in the irrigation and docks. In the northern tunnels settle out and accumulate climes, when winter sets in, in the sumps. When sand and ice dams start to form. Marina silt get in the pumps, they wear owners are trying to protect on the pump vanes. However, their docks. We put our devices there is a possibility that we can down in specific locations, and drop our small pump units in the bubbles keep the ice from and use them to push the sand forming on top. and silt back out of the sumps They can also be used to and protect the pumps. I’m pretty keep reservoirs and irrigation sure we can do that. Our devices plants free of silt or to mix will create a cone of depression; and destratify bodies of water. if placed right below the pump You can also use the mixers or intake, they can prevent the silt pumps to destratify them. If you and sand from ever getting into have a large, stratified body of the pumps, increasing pump Outlined in blue, an aerobic zone; outlined in red, an water, you can keep cold water life. I want to say they’re using anerobic zone created by Pulsed Burst's devices. pumping from the bottom to 5-horsepower pumps, or maybe the top to keep the lake mixed. 15-horsepower—large pumps The devices could potentially that are moving a lot of water. prevent turnover from happening, but for that you’d need Using our devices in this way could decrease maintenance quite a few of them, especially in a large body. costs significantly over time. The real advantage of it is that we’re using low-pressure air. There are no moving parts in our system. Basically, all you have to do is break the static pressure of the water with Joshua Dill: How did you find out about The Water Council? a blower, so if the device is at a depth of 15 feet and the water at that depth is at a pressure of roughly 7 pounds Charles Otis: In 2013, when I was living in Norway and per square inch (psi), we can use 7 psi air to pump and deciding whether to stay there, a good friend of mine in mix. This makes the process cost effective both from an Milwaukee sent me a link about The Water Council. This energy standpoint and from a maintenance perspective, was right around when it got started. I thought it sounded so since there’s nothing moving but air and water. The cool—something like that in my home state. When I moved advantage of that in a wastewater-treatment system, for back, I decided to be as close to it as possible. I figured example, is that they’re already going to be using blowers that with my background in water it might provide good for microbiological reasons, adding air as fine bubbles to opportunities for finding work. It was close to home, which activated sludge, for example, in order to have the oxygen is important. I had been trying to get my foot in the door for that the bacteria and protozoa need to treat the waste. a couple of years after moving back until it serendipitously So instead of adding an electronic propeller mixer or happened last year. something like that, we can use the same air that’s already being used, and we’re able to do that without adding Joshua Dill: Are there any big contrasts that stand out to oxygen. That cuts down on equipment and motors to you between how the water industry functions in Norway maintain. Also, you can pump. You don’t necessarily need and in the United States? to pump all that much water, depending on the volume of
THE INNOVATORS
Pulsed Burst's MegaBubble device.
Charles Otis: There’s a lot of innovation in Norway. The wastewater-treatment systems, for example, tend to be a lot smaller than our municipal systems. The buildings are smaller. If you’re going to build there, you’re building on bedrock, so you have to blast a lot. It’s a lot more decentralized in terms of where the water industry is. They also have, of course, the offshore oil industry, which has the same sorts of issues with space. It is not necessarily cheap equipment by any means, but it is small and effective. In Norway, and in Europe in general, they’re used to spending a little bit more money on the treatment, although Norway especially has quite a bit of money from the oil that they invest wisely. Quite a few companies have come out of Norway: Salsnes Filter is one, which is now owned by Trojan UV, a Canadian company. Another is Biowater, which was actually formed by the people who were originally Kaldnes. Kaldnes was bought by the German company Krüger, and then sold to Veolia for $100 million about 10 years ago. Biowater was formed after they sold because there was still more they could do with their technology than just simple wastewater treatment. Another company is Cambi, which does sludge hydrolysis and power generation from waste. There are a quite a few more, especially on the produced-water treatment side of things for the offshore oil industry. It’s innovative, which I think is partly a function of being so close to the other EU countries where there are a lot of small companies that are nimbler and less consolidated than the ones in the United States. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Joshua Dill: Do you think there’s any one big lesson that the U.S. water industry could learn from Norway? Charles Otis: More speculative research and development money would be good. In the United States, large companies like Xylem, Evoqua, and Suez get big contracts because they are established. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is a lot of innovation in small companies because they are nimbler and have to adjust to the market. Joshua Dill: Is there anything else you wanted to add? Charles Otis: The Water Council is doing a fantastic job right now. What they’re doing is really making Milwaukee and the Global Water Center a magnet for water businesses. I think they’re going to do quite well in the future as things start to coalesce and the cluster starts making more waves. I would never have met Shane Leonard without them. I went into that presentation at The Water Council with no expectations at all. The exposure we got there will help our business quite a bit. I’m happy to be a part of it. M Charles Otis is the chief operating officer of Pulsed Burst Systems. He can be contacted at charles@pulsedburst.com.
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THE INNOVATORS
Water Bottle Fill Stations Serve Up Refreshing, Healthy Water Throughout Eastern Municipal Water District’s Service Area
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
THE INNOVATORS
Water Bottle Fill Stations as Public Outreach: Lessons From Eastern Municipal Water District
PHOTOS COURTESY OF EMWD.
E
astern Municipal Water District (EMWD) EMWD set a goal to install 19 water bottle filling provides water, wastewater, and recycled water stations in area schools annually. Qualifications for services to more than 816,000 people in Riverside installation were quickly developed: A school wishing to County, California. EMWD is the sixth-largest retail install a water bottle fill station had to be in the EMWD water agency in the state of California. More than a decade service network, and it had to identify a high-traffic area of California water industry survey data for the station, mark it with a cobranded suggest a strong correlation between the The program is sign provided by EMWD, and maintain value that customers place on water with aimed at promoting the unit and signage for at least 5 years. their acceptance of water infrastructure EMWD’s tap water All stations must be compliant with the project expenses, rate increases, and other Americans with Disabilities Act and with messaging in an management decisions. Customer approval is California Division of the State Architect extremely important in EMWD’s service area, innovative yet requirements. Messaging was crafted to where demographics are diverse and people convey the quality, reliability, and value cost-effective tend to be more cost-sensitive than of tap water. manner that also the statewide average. In 2017, EMWD exceeded its annual encourages people goal: 33 fill stations were installed in With an eye toward boosting customer to try EMWD’s approval, EMWD developed the Tap Into area schools, 14 more than the minimum campaign to support its goals of engaging number it wanted to install. All of the high-quality tap in educational community outreach and installations were successful, and total water. fostering intergovernmental partnerships. program expenses came in significantly One of the major successes of the Tap Into under budget. Usage counters on the filling campaign has been the water bottle fill station program, stations indicated that the average station gave out the which was developed as a way to engage with customers in equivalent of 6,000–12,000 16-ounce bottles of water per highly visible public spaces throughout the EMWD service year—increasing tap water consumption and reducing area. The program is aimed at promoting EMWD’s tap water plastic bottle waste. Providing exposure to more than messaging in an innovative yet cost-effective manner that also 800 students and teachers per school day, the program has encourages people to try EMWD’s high-quality tap already exceeded EMWD’s expectations. water—free of charge. EMWD’s filling station program was so successful that During the first phase of the program, water bottle filling it has been recognized with the Public Relations Society stations were installed in each of EMWD’s five geographic of America’s most prestigious award, the Polaris Award. board divisions. They were a big hit: Users reported a Meanwhile, the program has continued to grow: EMWD 95 percent satisfaction rate. EMWD then began looking for has approved 35 additional water bottle filling station an innovative way to target K-12 and college audiences in its installations in area schools; applications for 40 more are service area and educate them on the quality, reliability, and pending. The initiative is spreading across the state, too: value of EMWD’s tap water. For the second phase of the Water agencies are replicating EMWD’s program in local water bottle fill station program, EMWD identified schools throughout California. M 123 grade schools and colleges in its service area as potential candidates for water bottle fill stations. Surveys found that For more about EMWD’s filling station service, visit at a large majority of the schools in the EMWD service https://www.emwd.org/services/drinking-water-service/ area, traditional drinking fountains were being underused. water-bottle-filling-stations. EMWD saw in-school water bottle fill stations as the perfect opportunity to promote the Tap Into message while increasing the consumption of potable water.
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