Municipal Water Leader April 2019

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Volume 6 Issue 4

April 2019

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SECRETARY BEN GRUMBLES: ADVANCING ONE WATER MANAGEMENT IN MARYLAND

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Municipal Water Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Nicole E. Venable, Graphic Designer

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Secretary Ben Grumbles: Advancing One Water Management in Maryland

Contents April 2019 Volume 6, Issue 4

5 Water Reuse in the East

By Kris Polly

22 Turning Reuse Water Into Beer: Pure Water Brew

6 Secretary Ben Grumbles: Advancing One Water Management in Maryland

26 New Trends in Chemigation

10 Hampton Roads’ Coastal Aquifer Recharge Program

34 How ICF Provides Environmental Compliance Services to the Water Industry

DISTRICT PROFILE THE INNOVATORS DISTRICT PROFILE

ADVERTISING: Municipal Water Leader accepts one-quarter, half-page, and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or municipal.water.leader@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Municipal Water Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors.

For address corrections or additions, please contact our managing editor, Joshua Dill, at joshua.dill@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2019 Water Strategies LLC. Municipal Water Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Municipal Water Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Municipal Water Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Municipal Water Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

MunicipalWaterLeader.com

Coming soon in Municipal Water Leader: May: Midwest Flooding June: New Orleans Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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MuniWaterLeader

COVER PHOTO:

Ben Grumbles, Secretary of the Environment for the State of Maryland. Photo courtesy of Maryland Department of the Environment.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT.

16 Reducing West Monroe’s Groundwater Needs Through Reuse

30 Calling All Water Leaders!

SUBMISSIONS: Municipal Water Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or municipal.water.leader@waterstrategies.com.

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Water Reuse in the East

By Kris Polly

O

ut West, everyone knows about water reuse and recycling. Across Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and other arid states, municipalities have implemented schemes to purify and reuse wastewater to provide water for industrial, commercial, and environmental uses—and even for use as drinking water. However, water recycling is just as appropriate on the East Coast. In this issue of Municipal Water Leader, we highlight several installations in the East, as well as a few technologies and public outreach strategies that have the potential to promote water reuse even more.

In our cover story, we talk to Ben Grumbles, Maryland’s secretary of the environment. Under Secretary Grumbles leadership, Maryland is embedding the principle of integrated water management into statewide policy to enable growth while reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. We then travel farther south on the Chesapeake to the Hampton Roads Sanitation District in southeastern Virginia. The district’s ambitious coastal aquifer recharge program will put 100 million gallons a day of drinkingquality water into the local aquifer by 2030, thus reducing pollution, replenishing groundwater, and reducing ground subsidence. In West Monroe, Louisiana, meanwhile, the Sparta Reuse Facility is providing 5 million gallons of treated water a day to a local paper mill, reducing the mill’s groundwater needs and preserving the local aquifer from depletion and saltwater intrusion.

Water reuse is safe and beneficial, but it sometimes worries consumers. To address those fears, Oregon's Clean

Water Services started the Pure Water Brew contest, in which brewers compete to turn purified water into best-inshow beer.

Chemigation is another technology that is better known in the arid West than in the East, but as Agri-Inject chief executive officer Erik Tribelhorn tells us, it is highly suitable for states like Maryland that are seeking to reduce chemical runoff.

In this magazine, we also check in with Dean Amhaus, president of The Water Council, about the upcoming Water Leaders Summit, and we speak with Pablo Arroyave of ICF about how his company helps clients comply with the alphabet soup of regulations that any major project faces.

Across the country, innovative technologies and farsighted policymakers are safeguarding water supplies and fighting against environmental degradation at the same time. Using water wisely is not something that only western users need to worry about—it is universal. The water reuse accomplishments of East Coast managers are impressive, and we are proud to feature them in this issue of Municipal Water Leader. 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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Secretary Ben Grumbles:

ADVANCING O n e Wa t e r

Management in Maryland

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Ben Grumbles: I worked on Capitol Hill for a decade and a half on water legislation and policy in the U.S. House of Representatives, then served as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator for water, heading up the agency’s national programs, and then served as director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. I learned a lot about western water

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he Maryland Department of the Environment protects and restores the environment for the health and wellbeing of all Marylanders, with particular emphasis on the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed. Today, one of the department’s main priorities is implementing integrated water management. Water reuse is a major part of this initiative and has a role in increasing water supply, replenishing the local aquifer, preventing saltwater intrusion, and reducing pollution.

In this interview, Ben Grumbles, secretary of the environment for the State of Maryland, speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about his department’s environmental initiatives, the importance of water reuse, and the challenges of implementing ambitious reuse initiatives across the state.

through those experiences. When I moved back east, I served as president of the U.S. Water Alliance. Governor Larry Hogan nominated me, and the Maryland Senate confirmed me as Maryland’s environment secretary in 2015.

Marylanders are focused on water. Over 90 percent of the state drains into the Chesapeake Bay, and all Marylanders are concerned with the quality and quantity of the water that goes into our streams, rivers, aquifers, and the bay itself.

Westerners understand well that in large drainage basins, there

are debates between upstream and downstream water users. A major portion of what we focus on in Maryland is the quality of the water in the basin, both within our state and above us in the huge six-state Chesapeake Bay drainage area.

Governor Hogan is focused on working closely with the state’s number 1 industry, agriculture, and the towns and cities that form the fabric of communities throughout Maryland in order to accomplish this.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your water reuse initiative.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF ADOBE STOCK.

Ben Grumbles: A major new area of focus for the Hogan administration and the Maryland Department of the Environment is water reuse.

Over the last year, we have been polishing the details of a statewide water reuse initiative, embracing the fundamental concept of one water, or integrated water management. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to see the movement toward integrated water management, reuse, and conjunctive-use concepts across the United States. In Maryland, one water means working with agricultural and municipal sectors, including irrigators, on the reuse of water.

Some Maryland towns and communities are beginning to see water supply challenges. Water is becoming their Achilles’ heel, limiting growth and development. Some towns are interested in indirect potable reuse and gray water recycling. The Maryland Department of the Environment has been working with the legislature on regulations and policy initiatives for water reuse over the last 3 years. Virginia and several other states in the Southeast are further along on the reuse front than Maryland, but we are committed to catching up.

Our initiative is not just a sustainable water supply strategy—it is also a water quality strategy. Our ambitious goal is to get as close to zero discharge as possible. It’s also a compliance strategy for water quality standards, total daily maximum load regulations, and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.

In 2019, we recognize that the future of water is reuse.

That is not just true on the West Coast or in arid portions of the country. In Maryland, too, we need to devote attention to growth, water quality, and the cost-effective management of our most precious liquid asset. Doing this requires a combination of financial, regulatory, and policy initiatives.

All of this came to a head last year when we held discussions with a number of Israeli companies that work on irrigation technologies, wastewater reuse, and cost-effective ways to recycle water for towns and cities. Governor Hogan went to Israel in 2016 and signed a memorandum of understanding on partnerships on a variety of subjects, one of which was water sustainability. On October 10, 2018, the State of Maryland, along with our many different agencies, universities, utilities, and businesses, held a summit at the University of Maryland on water reuse, water security, and cyberterrorism. Maryland has also been busy over the last 2 years as part of the National Governors Association Water Policy Task Force, cochaired by Governor Hogan and Governor Brown of California.

Kris Polly: Tell us more about your initiative and its goals.

Ben Grumbles: Our fundamental goal is to embed the one water principle of integrated and sustainable water management into statewide water policy. Public and private entities are recognizing that although there are different

types of water— wastewater, industrial process water, storm water, rainwater, gray water, and irrigation water—they can all be conserved and reused. If you get the experts and stakeholders speaking to one another, you can tap into enormous cost efficiencies and recycle water in a way that makes sense economically and environmentally, and above all, in a way that is protective of public health.

Step 1 is embedding this one water principle throughout state water policy in Maryland. Step 2 is following through on legislation, regulation, and financial incentives.

Last year, we worked with the legislature to enact a law to encourage more residential gray water reuse. We are finalizing regulations pursuant to that law to encourage an expansion of the recycling of gray water. We recently issued new regulations to allow for the use of reclaimed water in certain commercial, industrial, and government applications, including fountains, ponds, toilets, closed-loop cooling, dust control, car washing, and residential watering on nonedible vegetation.

Kris Polly: What are the current projects you are working on in the context of the initiative?

Ben Grumbles: Our water reuse initiative links the business community with towns. One of the most important development projects in Maryland is in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. There is a large, formerly industrial brownfield site where a lot of new businesses are establishing themselves, including Under Armour. A lot of new employees will be working and living there. We are working with the city to come up with water reuse strategies to manage the strain on the sewers. By collaborating and applying innovative technologies, we can enable smart growth without putting added strain on the sewer systems or the Chesapeake Bay. We are also working with different businesses to make sure innovative reuse technologies are developed and deployed. Both technology and sociology are important.

With any type of reuse strategy, it is important to build both the scientific foundation and public support so that the so-called ick factor does not prevent safe, beneficial projects from moving forward. We have put an emphasis on public education and explaining the concept of one water and the array of public health and environmental safeguards that make reuse safe.

We are working with some towns and counties MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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ADVERTISEMENT on indirect potable reuse possibilities. For example, Westminster has longstanding concerns about its water supply and the possibility that insufficient supply will restrain growth and economic development. The city has hired an engineer to develop a proposal for indirect potable reuse. We are interested in the project pursued by Hampton Roads, Virginia, which has coastal-subsidence and saltwater-intrusion problems in addition to a water supply problem. Around 5 years ago, they began to develop an expensive wastewater treatment strategy involving reclaiming highly treated wastewater and injecting it underground to recharge the aquifer, stem sea level rise and soil subsidence, and meet water supply needs.

Lastly, there is a strong partnership between the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Maryland Department of Agriculture, and the University of Maryland’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The college has been working with scientists on conservation and reuse strategies.

They have a program called Conserve that was heavily involved in our water reuse summit with Israel.

Kris Polly: Is the State of Maryland aware that in the West, farmers have been fertilizing through center pivots to reduce runoff?

Ben Grumbles: Yes, that is one of the topics the Department of Agriculture, which has a significant water policy portfolio, has been looking at.

Photovoltaic cells powering a wastewater treatment plant in Maryland.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your vision for the future.

Ben Grumbles: Everyone recognizes that water reuse is the future. We are keeping it at the forefront of our minds as we develop initiatives and regulatory policy strategies for spray irrigation, for the reuse of wastewater for industrial processes, and for the redevelopment of brownfield sites. All of this is being done with public health and the environment in mind, and we work to gain public support for that. I want to underscore that while Maryland has a way to go to catch up with states in the West, this water reuse initiative is a priority for us. M

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Treated wastewater is used to irrigate wheat fields.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT.

Ben Grumbles is the secretary of the environment for the State of Maryland. He can be contacted at ben.grumbles@maryland.gov. For information about Maryland’s Department of the Environment, visit mde.maryland.gov.

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HAMPTON ROADS’

COASTAL AQUIFER RECHARGE PROGRAM

H

ampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) is unusual in several ways.

The southeastern Virginia wastewater utility is governed by an apolitical, governor-appointed commission; it covers a broad area encompassing multiple municipalities; and it bills its customers directly, all of which provide it with a certain independence and regionwide outlook. Moreover, HRSD has embarked on an ambitious aquifer recharge program. Through its Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow (SWIFT) program, HRSD is putting its highly treated effluent through additional advanced water treatment processes to produce SWIFT water—water that meets drinking water standards—and using it to recharge the coastal plain aquifer, thus

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Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

variety of jobs for my whole career, originally in the Navy and then in local government as a public works director. I have been in the Hampton Roads area the whole time. I was aware of the regional wastewater treatment agency, HRSD, and was looking for an opportunity to contribute, so when the general manager position opened, I pursued it. I was fortunate enough to be selected in 2006, and I have been able to take advantage of the professional relationships I’ve built in the Hampton Roads area in my new job and have continued to expand them in wastewater.

Ted Henifin: I pursued an education in civil engineering and have worked in the public sector in a

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about HRSD’s services and its service area.

simultaneously reducing HRSD’s discharges into the Chesapeake Bay, replenishing the region’s groundwater supplies, and possibly slowing or reversing land subsidence.

In this interview, Ted Henifin, general manager of HRSD, tells Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the motivations behind SWIFT, its accomplishments, and the developments he expects to see over the next 100 years of wastewater treatment.

PHOTO COURTESY OF. HAMPTON ROADS SANITATION DISTRICT.

ADVERTISEMENT Ted Henifin: We are a regional wastewater treatment agency in southeastern Virginia, covering a large service area of about 3,100 square miles with a population of about 1.7 million people. About 20 percent of Virginians are our customers. We provide interceptor, transmission, and conveyance systems as well as treatment. The local governments that we serve collect the wastewater in their localities through a variety of gravity and pressure systems and then transfer it to our system at about 1,000 points of collection where they’ve got terminal pump stations. Our service area is flat coastal land, so most of our system is made up of large-diameter pressurized pipes that move wastewater to our treatment plants.

HRSD was created by a referendum and legislation that created a political subdivision in Virginia. Our eightmember commission is governor appointed, meaning that it is not directly connected to local governments.

There are some residency requirements stipulating that the commissioners be drawn from across the region we serve, but they are tasked with looking out for the interests and the environment of the commonwealth as a whole, so they don’t have a parochial viewpoint. The commissioners serve at the governor’s pleasure for a 4-year term and can be reappointed. At this point, the commission is apolitical.

The commissioners do not receive pay beyond a minimal stipend of $50 per meeting, so for them, it is a way to give back to the community. The commission hired me as general manager.

HRSD is singularly focused on wastewater, which in some ways makes the job easier. However, that also means that if we want to do integrated water management work, we have to develop relationships, because some of what we want to work on falls outside the scope of our authority.

We bill our customers directly.

Our customer base pays their local governments for sewer collection and maintenance services and then pays us for wastewater treatment. The

1.7 million people in our service area hold 470,000 individual accounts, which are billed based on water consumption.

We send accountholders a bill on a regular basis, depending on how frequently their local government reads the water meter.

All this sets us apart from most other agencies. We are a truly regional agency with a governor-appointed, apolitical board, and we bill our customers directly to raise our revenues. Those are advantages over most wastewater agencies.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about HRSD’s SWIFT program.

Ted Henifin: Around 2014, we were doing some long-term scenario planning as an organization, trying to envision the situation of wastewater in our region in 50–100 years. The thing that consistently came up in all our scenarios was the lack of regulatory stability. We knew that regulations on wastewater discharge would continue to change and that we would continue to need to make major periodic investments in our treatment plants to keep up.

That process led us to ask how we could get some control over our future. We came up with the idea that treating our wastewater to drinking water standards would be one way to do this because there’s not much more a regulator could ask us to do. That, in turn, led us to look into whether that kind of treatment was feasible, and what we could do with the valuable purified water that would result. Around the same time, the State of Virginia was looking at cutting back on some of the major groundwater withdrawal permits because its modeling was showing that the aquifer was being depleted more rapidly than it could be naturally recharged. We realized that if we had drinking-quality water, we could put it back in the aquifer and possibly help remedy the aquifer depletion problem.

We did some modeling in 2015 using the groundwater model the state had developed and found that recharging the aquifer from our treatment plants

actually would make a positive difference over the 50-year period we were considering.

Not all our plants are located near the ocean, where they could discharge brine, so we were interested in finding something other than membrane technology, which creates a brine-laden discharge. We piloted a membranebased treatment train based on the California standard of microfiltration and reverse osmosis. We installed that side by side with a carbon-based process: traditional flocculation/sedimentation followed by biologically activated carbon and granular-activated carbon polishing and UV. We ran the pilot for 6–7 months in 2016 and found that both of the processes could reliably meet drinking water standards. The big difference was that the carbonbased process doesn’t remove salts. The carbon-train effluent was above the secondary maximum contamination level for total dissolved solids (TDS), though its TDS was still well below that of the groundwater. The SWIFT water from the carbon-based process averaged 600–700 milligrams per liter (mg/L).

Groundwater in our region ranges from 700 to well over 1,500 mg/L. The TDS in SWIFT water actually made the water more compatible with groundwater. We’ve selected the carbonbased process. The next step was to make enough of this water to start putting it in the ground and to see if it would make a difference. We built a research and public education facility in Suffolk, where we produce 1 million gallons a day and have been successfully putting that in the ground for a number of months.

We still discharge 150 million gallons a day into the Chesapeake Bay on average, adding up to hundreds of thousands of pounds of phosphorous and millions of pounds of nitrogen annually. If we can divert that water and put it back in the ground, where the nitrogen and phosphorous levels are higher than in the SWIFT water, we can improve the quality of the water in the bay and help the region to comply with its total maximum daily load.

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HRSD's research facility.

The other thing we found along the way was that because of withdrawals from the aquifer, there has been some land subsidence. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has measured about 4 millimeters per year of land subsidence because of excessive groundwater withdrawals. If we can put water back into the aquifer and increase its pressure, we might get some of that back. Our models have shown that to be the case. USGS monitors aquifer compaction near our recharge well, and it is seeing a response at this point, although we don’t have all the data cleaned up yet.

The big benefits are regulatory stability, the reduction of discharge into Chesapeake Bay, sustainable groundwater supply from our aquifer in eastern Virginia, and the potential to address some of the effects of aquifer compaction.

Ted Henifin: The research facility we’ve got today has a capacity of 1 million gallons a day. For our full-scale project, we will build out facilities at five of our treatment plants, treating a total of 100 million gallons a day by 2030. The first one will come online sometime around 2023, and pretty much every other year from then until 2030 we’ll be bringing much larger full-scale facilities online. Our treatment plants have a combined capacity of about 250 million gallons a day.

Our largest plant is too close to the coast to use as a recharge site, and several of the smaller treatment plants are too small

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Joshua Dill: When you were considering this project, were you inspired by aquifer recharge projects in other parts of the country?

Ted Henifin: Absolutely. We visited Orange County, which is probably the gold standard for aquifer recharge. That helped us understand the benefits as well as the challenges of aquifer recharge. We did research on where else it’s been done around the world and for how long. Recharge actually has a pretty lengthy successful history, typically in arid regions suffering from water scarcity. We are not a waterstarved region from a surface water standpoint, but we are depleting our groundwater faster than nature can replenish it.

For us, it was a priority to do this without high-energy-use membrane technology that would create a significant brine

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HAMPTON ROADS SANITATION DISTRICT.

Joshua Dill: What will the aquifer recharge program look like when it is fully developed?

to cost effectively add the advanced treatment facilities required for SWIFT. We are building these advanced water treatment facilities at the end of the rest of our regular water treatment facilities. We’re designing them to take the average day flows, so they will be used close to 100 percent of the time. That capacity is smaller than the full design rating of the treatment plants, so during wet weather and periods of peak flow, we’ll still be discharging fully treated secondary effluent through our outfalls, but the majority of the flow will be routed to the advanced treatment facilities to be treated to meet drinking water standards and used to recharge the aquifer.

ADVERTISEMENT flow. The nice thing about the carbon process is that pretty much 100 percent of that water goes through the process, less some backwash that goes back into our treatment plant. The other big benefit is that it doesn’t create a concentrate that is heavily laden with brine or other byproducts that have to be treated before being discharged back into the environment.

Joshua Dill: What is the source of the drinking water in your service area?

We also have the benefit of having NASA’s Langley Research Center, one of the oldest NASA research centers, in Hampton. That is where they trained the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts for many of their missions. That means we’ve got a science-based population that understands that space exploration requires the use of reclaimed water. I think there’s a general acceptance that this is a good idea if done properly.

Ted Henifin: About 80 percent is surface water, most of which comes from the western parts of our service area. On the Virginia Peninsula, in the northern part of our service area, there are a series of reservoirs that bring water down from various surface catchments to the west. On the south side of our service area, we have some surface water catchment reservoirs. There is also a 74-mile-long, 60-inch-diameter pipeline from Lake Gaston in North Carolina that brings water to our region. That was completed in 1997, amid a lot of controversy.

The other 20 percent of the supply is groundwater drawn from municipal groundwater wells. All our municipal water supplies have wells for drought-resistance strategies and backup supplies. Our region has not experienced a major drought in more than a decade, so it becomes easy to overlook the fact that a prolonged drought would affect our surface water sources. SWIFT provides added resilience to our region’s water supply.

Joshua Dill: Could this program be replicated elsewhere on the East Coast, and how do factors like geography and geology affect this?

Joshua Dill: So to a certain extent this could be considered an indirect potable reuse project.

Ted Henifin: Correct. Actually, there is already an indirect potable reuse project in the Upper Occoquan system in northern Virginia. The Upper Occoquan Service Authority has been discharging successfully into the Occoquan Reservoir for more than 40 years. That means that there is some familiarity with and acceptance of indirect potable reuse within Virgina already.

Joshua Dill: What is the public opinion about your aquifer recharge program?

Ted Henifin: We’ve done some outreach work, including focus groups, surveys, and in-depth interviews. Opinion has been pretty positive, maybe because the majority of the region’s water is not drawn from the aquifer. I also think that the world, the country, and the region are much more accepting of the idea that there is a limited supply of fresh water on the planet, and that as we continue to grow and climate change continues to affect us, we need to be better stewards of water. I think there is a general acceptance that the technology can make it happen and is safe. We’ve held a number of water tasting events, and the majority of the people there will taste the water and don’t seem to have any problem with it.

Ted Henifin: The aquifer we’re dealing with is part of a coastal plain aquifer that goes along the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to South Carolina. There are lots of opportunities along this coast. I know that some communities around Annapolis, Maryland, are looking at what we’re doing to see if they could do something similar. Some folks from South Carolina have talked to us as well.

One geographic factor that works to our advantage is that we are the water users farthest downstream. Water users who are farther inland and who discharge into a smaller river where the flow is needed by downstream users can’t necessarily use their water to recharge the aquifer without reducing that flow.

Our solution can’t be applied everywhere. Even in Virginia, once you get west of the fall line, you couldn’t do this kind of aquifer recharge project.

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about your vision for the future for HRSD and SWIFT? Ted Henifin: We see SWIFT as the future of wastewater treatment, providing a holistic view of water. Our goal is to complete the initial rollout, ending in 2030, to prove the concept and to show that we can do this on a large scale.

Over time, I think we will need to do some sea level rise adaptation work. Even if we are successful in slowing down aquifer compaction, the sea is still rising. We will need to do some climate change–related work in the 2030–2050 range.

I think that we’ll come back around to the idea of expanding SWIFT from average day flows to become zero-discharge plants sometime during this century. That will be the next big thing for us until such time as we can help the industry find a better way to deal with waste altogether. The concept of using clean water to move waste through large pipes for miles and miles to centralized treatment plants is not sustainable. I hope that within 100 years we will have a better way of dealing with waste at the source or through small, distributed systems. M

Ted Henifin is the general manager of the Hampton Roads Sanitation District. He can be contacted at ehenifin@hrsd.com.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF.

14 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) is proud to partner with farmers, parks and schools to maximize water-use efficiency through the expanded use and 100 percent beneficial reuse of recycled water.

SAFE COST-EFFECTIVE SUSTAINABLE Learn more at www.emwd.org/Recycled

Two 100,000-gallon storage tanks, where water is chlorinated prior to being pumped to the paper mill.

Reducing West Monroe’s Groundwater Needs Through Reuse

T

16 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Terry Emory: I started with the City of West Monroe in August 1994, somewhat accidentally. I was between jobs and took a part-time position with the city doing tasks like data entry, environmental paperwork, and discharge monitoring reports. Then the city had somebody leave and needed a class 4 operator. They asked me to take the tests, and I passed them and got the position. In 2004, the previous superintendent left the city, and I was promoted to environmental quality manager. I run the water treatment plant and the sewage treatment plant and handle any kind of environmental permit that the city has.

Joshua Dill: Does the City of West Monroe Public Works Department provide all the water services for the city?

Terry Emory: We provide potable water only to the city of West Monroe, but our wastewater treatment plant and the Sparta Reuse Facility handle wastewater not only for the city, but also for West Ouachita Sewer District Number 5, which covers the most heavily populated area of West Ouachita Parish. We provide potable water to about 13,600 people and wastewater services to about 45,000 people.

Joshua Dill: Where does the city’s water come from?

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY OF WEST MONROE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.

he West Monroe Public Works Department provides potable water and wastewater services to West Monroe, Louisiana, and its environs. During the 1990s, West Monroe became aware that the regional Sparta aquifer was being depleted at a rate of 18 million gallons a day beyond the recharge rate. In 2012, the city took a huge step toward remedying this problem with the opening of its Sparta Reuse Facility. The facility provides 5 million gallons of water a day to a local paper mill, cutting the mill’s groundwater consumption in half. This accomplishment has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2012 White House Champions of Change award, the 2015 WateReuse Large Project of the Year award, and three international awards from the Green Organisation.

In this interview, Terry Emory, environmental quality manager at the West Monroe Public Works Department, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the accomplishments of the reuse facility and what it can teach other municipalities.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

The interior of the 450,000–square foot Sparta Reuse Facility, which houses 12 filter trains.

Terry Emory: The city’s water supply is 100 percent groundwater, drawn from the Sparta aquifer.

Joshua Dill: What was the initial motivation for establishing the Sparta Reuse Facility?

Terry Emory: The motivation behind it was the depletion of the Sparta aquifer. The Sparta aquifer is a large aquifer that reaches into Mississippi and Arkansas. In North Louisiana, there are 17 parishes that use the aquifer as their primary water source—for drinking water and for water for irrigation and industrial uses. The aquifer was being depleted at a rate of 18 million gallons a day beyond its recharge rate. The static water level in the region’s wells was rapidly dropping, and we were starting to see some saltwater intrusion from the saltwater layer that lies underneath the aquifer. West Monroe is at the eastern edge of the aquifer, and we were seeing higher increases in fluoride and bromide levels than water users in the western portions of the aquifer.

The largest water user of the entire aquifer is a paper mill in West Monroe run by Graphic Packaging. As I mentioned, the depletion rate on the aquifer was 18 million gallons a day. This paper mill was using 10 million gallons a day all by itself. We had the heaviest cone of depression directly on West Monroe because of that.

During the 1990s, we started working on a plan to recycle the wastewater from a wastewater treatment plant to send to the plant for use as process water. The biggest

catch, though, was that Graphic Packaging makes foodcontact paper. As a precondition to taking part in this project, they stipulated that the water had to meet every primary and secondary drinking water standard established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). So we built a pilot plant, and because the characteristics of our effluent change significantly on a seasonal basis, we ran it for 1 full year to prove that we could run it successfully year round. The pilot plant produced 1 million gallons a day.

We signed a contract with the paper mill in 2009 and completed the construction of the Sparta Reuse Facility in January 2012. We built it to treat 10–12 million gallons a day.

We started sending the mill water on April 30, 2012, and we have been able to consistently meet its standards and send it approximately 5 million gallons every day. It cut the mill’s consumption from the aquifer in half. What we’d like to do now is to tie some of the smaller treatment systems in our area into our system so that we receive the mill’s effluent flows and can treat and send up to 10 million gallons a day to the mill, eliminating its reliance on the aquifer altogether. We recently got some funding for that.

Joshua Dill: Where did the funding for the construction of the facility come from?

Terry Emory: The total cost of the plant, including the pipeline to the paper mill, was $20.5 million. Of that, $17 million came from various sources, including MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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state capital outlay money, grants from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), and federal stimulus money for green projects. The balance of that was split between the City of West Monroe and West Ouachita Sewer District Number 5.

One of the things that made this project economically feasible was the proximity of our sewage treatment plant to the paper mill. The properties joined and the only obstacle was a levee that we had to cross. The pipeline, which is just less than 1 mile long, cost $2 million. For projects that require longer pipelines, the cost can be prohibitive.

Joshua Dill: What method does your reuse facility use to purify the water?

Terry Emory: Our existing sewage treatment plan is a completely biological process, involving two 50-acre oxidation ponds that go to rock filters. From there, the water is chlorinated, disinfected, and dechlorinated. At that point it used to be discharged into the Ouachita River. Now, however, all the water from that discharge point goes to the Sparta Reuse Facility. There, the first step is a flocculation tank where we add a polymer. At this point, the biggest thing that we have to remove is algae. It’s hot down here, and algae is a big problem. The polymer makes the algae clump together better.

From there, the water goes to dissolved air flotation units so that the algae can be skimmed off the top. From there, the water goes to activated carbon units, and then out to two 100,000-gallon storage tanks, where it’s chlorinated and sent to the paper mill.

Joshua Dill: What have the results been with the aquifer?

Joshua Dill: When you were considering this project, were you inspired by projects in other regions of the United States?

Terry Emory: No, not really. In terms of the treatment process it uses and its fulfillment of all primary and secondary EPA drinking water standards, this facility is the only one of its kind in the United States. We were actually inspired by two plants in Africa—one in South Africa, which is also sending its water to a paper mill for use as process water, and one in Namibia, which is blending its treated water back in with the

18 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

region’s small amounts of potable water and using it for drinking water.

Joshua Dill: Have you considered recharging the aquifer?

Terry Emory: We’ve talked about doing that in the future. We actually built the plant in such a way that we could install two more units and treat up to 12 million gallons of effluent a day, if we could get that much. At that point, we would have excess water that we could use to recharge the aquifer. I would say that’s pretty far down the road.

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about your use of renewable energy?

Terry Emory: We got a $1.2 million grant from the Louisiana DEQ last year to build an 880-panel solar farm to help run the water reuse facility. It’s the largest municipal installation in the state. We predict that it is going to reduce our electric bill by about 20 percent.

Joshua Dill: What is your advice for other municipalities that are thinking about implementing similar projects?

Terry Emory: This would be a great project for any municipality. As I mentioned, proximity to the end user is important. Pipe can be extremely expensive, especially if you need to install it under railroad tracks or in other difficult areas. M

Terry Emory is the environmental quality manager at the West Monroe Public Works Department. She can be reached at temory@westmonroe.la.gov.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY OF WEST MONROE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.

Terry Emory: The results have been great. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a monitoring well of a depth of about 800 feet at the paper mill that had been showing a lot of saltwater intrusion years ago. I believe the paper mill abandoned the well for that reason—the water had become salty enough to damage its equipment. The latest information I received from USGS was that the static water level in that well has risen by 47–50 feet since 2012. The levels of fluoride, bromide, and conductivity have improved, which indicates that the freshwater level is increasing and pushing back the salt water.

One of the Sparta Reuse Facility’s 12 filter trains.

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Beer tasting at Pure Water Brew 2016.

TURNING REUSE WATER INTO BEER: PURE WATER BREW

W

ater reuse is a reliable and drought-resistant source of water for irrigation, in-stream flow augmentation, industrial uses, or even human consumption.

However, whenever recycled water is used for food preparation or for drinking water supplies, consumers tend to get squeamish. They think more about the water’s past as wastewater than about its current level of purity. To address this issue, Clean Water Services, a public utility based outside Portland, Oregon, began to supply water to some of the most demanding water users they could find: craft brewers. In the Pure Water Brew competition, craft brewers vie to turn Clean Water Services’ recycled water into beer of the highest quality—both in purity and taste.

In this interview, Mark Jockers, government and public affairs director of Clean Water Services, speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the genesis of the Pure Water Brew competition and how it has shifted public perceptions of water reuse.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

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Mark Jockers: We provide services to about 600,000 people in 12 cities in the urban unincorporated portion of Washington County, Oregon. Our service district covers about 115 square miles. We operate four wastewater treatment plants, including two advanced tertiary treatment plants. We clean about 70 million gallons of water a day before returning it to the Tualatin River. We manage stormwater in collaboration with our partner cities and manage flow in the Tualatin River itself. We own about a quarter of the stored water in this basin. We use that to augment flows in the river for water quality and fish habitat.

We also work on regional water supply and security planning.

Joshua Dill: Tell us about how you came up with the Pure Water Brew competition.

Mark Jockers: Clean Water Services is currently the largest reuse provider in the state of Oregon, which is not saying a lot. Reuse is not as developed in Oregon as it is, for instance, in the Southwest. We provide more than 100 million gallons of reuse water annually, primarily to urban irrigators like golf courses, parks, and athletic fields. Around 2014, we were thinking about strategies for expanding our reuse program. We were meeting with our board-appointed advisory commission, and one of our committee members, Art Larrance, said, “If you really want to talk about water,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CLEAN WATER SERVICES.

Mark Jockers: I am the government and public affairs director with Clean Water Services, a public utility in suburban Portland, Oregon. My background is actually in journalism. I have been working in the communication field for more than 30 years, 28 of them here at Clean Water Services, where I manage the district’s state and federal legislative agendas, as well as our communications, public involvement, research, outreach, and education programs.

Joshua Dill: How large is your service area and how many people does it serve?

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Judges assess beer made from recycled water.

you’ve got to make beer.” Art is the godfather of craft brewing in Oregon and is the cofounder of the Oregon Brewers Festival. This is a man who knows a lot about beer.

He said, “Beer starts conversations.”

The ingredients of beer are limited to water, hops, yeast, and malt, and the most important ingredient in any beer is water. First, wanted to demonstrate our industry’s ability to clean water to make it fit for purpose. By doing that, we wanted to demystify the water purification process and the urban water cycle. At the end of the day, I’m not sure that the public always understands that we’re in a closed system.

All water has been used before and all water will be used again. We’re just bringing that to light. Second, we wanted to showcase innovative water management and treatment technologies to inform the public about how we can create water fit for purpose. We also wanted to demonstrate the collaboration between local and state government and the private sector as well as bolster Oregon’s national reputation as a leader in innovative solutions to challenging environmental issues. And since I am in the storytelling business, I wanted to start a conversation about water and change the way we understood it.

At the time, some people thought was a crazy idea since there is an express prohibition against direct potable reuse in the state of Oregon. Actually, another purpose of this project was to work with a regulator to chart a pathway for expanded reuse opportunities. When we went to our regulator, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ), there was no clear permitting pathway to try this. We’re not very good at taking no for an answer, so we worked

with ODEQ to secure a permit modification that allowed us, on a limited demonstration basis, to use reuse water to produce an alcoholic beverage for educational purposes. The permit had to approve not only the technology that we were using but also the standards by which we were measuring the effectiveness of that technology. We have a 4-step process: ultrafiltration through membranes, reverse osmosis, disinfection, and advanced oxidation. We measure the water produced against both the drinking water maximum containment levels and the National Water Research Institute’s list of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and other contaminants of emerging concern. Our results demonstrated that we were producing perhaps the cleanest water on the planet. We provided all the water quality data to the brewers we were partnering with, and they referred to it as the table of zeros, because almost everything was nondetected.

Joshua Dill: How does the competition work?

Mark Jockers: Because of the complexity of the water quality regulations, drinking water regulations, and liquor control regulations, we decided to work with a group called the Oregon Brew Crew, one of the largest and oldest homebrewing associations in the nation. We provided the water, and they ran the competition. Currently, about 40 brewers participate in our competition each year. They’re interested because they’ve never brewed with water that’s this clean.

They see it as a blank slate. They customize the water to match the style of beer they’re making. If they are making a MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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Beer tasting at Pure Water Brew 2016.

Joshua Dill: How many years has the competition been going on now?

24 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Mark Jockers: We did a pilot in 2014 and had our first full-scale competition in 2015. This will be our fifth year.

Another brewery in Wisconsin was doing something similar in 2015.

In 2016, I worked with group of brewers in Orlando, Florida, on a similar project. They brought their beer to WEFTEC the next year.

In 2017, perhaps most remarkably, a group of water utilities and reuse providers in Arizona, together with the University of Arizona, put together a grant application to do a full-scale demonstration mobile high-purity water unit. They partnered with 26 commercial brewers in Arizona to do a similar project. The concept has even spread internationally: We produced a special beer last year that we shipped to Singapore International Water Week. The Singapore Public Utility Board provided water for a brewer in Singapore too. This has been done in Boise, Denver, Milwaukee, Orlando, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Singapore, and elsewhere. It’s really taken off.

Joshua Dill: What are the benefits of using a competition as a public outreach strategy?

Mark Jockers: At the end of the day, we are demonstrating our state-of-theart treatment technology. This is about telling that story, and beer is something that people are really interested in. It

starts a conversation: “You’re doing what with effluent? How do you do that?” I’ve been in the communication business for close to 35 years, and I have never experienced anything like this. Back in 2015, ODEQ issued a notice that it was going to consider the permit change we had requested at about 9:15 in the morning. By 10:30, there was a TV camera in front of our building. Before the public hearing on the permit issuance, we were in over 100 media stories.

Within that first year, we were in 400 stories worldwide, including in the Oregonian, National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Food & Wine. We hired Dr. Paul Slovic at the University of Oregon as a risk communication expert, particularly in the water space, to do a media analysis about whether our messages got through.

We found that our main messages succeeded in getting through: that all water is recycled water, that this is a sustainable approach, and that reuse technology is safe and reliable.

The most important message that we delivered was our tagline: Judge water on its quality, not its history.

Regulators and the public judge reuse water based on what it used to be— sewage. We want them to judge it on what it is now and its quality. We can demonstrate that the water we are producing is cleaner than the water from the tap in your home.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CLEAN WATER SERVICES.

Pilsner, they’ll try to match the water quality to that of the water you get in the Czech Republic. If they’re making a Kölsch, they’re trying to match a German water quality.

Those 40 brewers submit their beer to the Oregon Brew Crew. We partner with a variety of equipment manufacturers, engineering consultants, and other utilities that help support the competition. We can that beer, and then there’s a competition to select the best in show.

In 2016 we took the beer to Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC) for something called the Pure Water Brew Smackdown. It has since become an annual WEFTEC event, drawing competitors from across the country who have brewed beer with high-purity reuse water.

The goal of all this is to change people’s understanding of the urban water cycle and to start a conversation about reuse. One of the things that was most successful for us is that brewers are outstanding spokespeople for water quality. They are as smart as, if not smarter than, those of us who are deeply embedded in the water industry.

Particularly in the Northwest, brewers have a tremendous level of credibility, particularly when it comes to the ingredients they use to craft beers.

ADVERTISEMENT Joshua Dill: Were you able to measure the effects on the public opinion in your service area?

Mark Jockers: That’s always complicated. I think Dr. Slovic’s work demonstrated that we were able to communicate our key messages. Trends in public acceptance tend to move more slowly. The local and national research we have been able to do suggests that people are aware of the project. When we had the public hearing, I think our regulator thought that we would hear a lot of concern about public health. What actually happened was that environmental and farming groups came in to support our project.

I think the more important measure is that as a result of this project, our regulator has agreed to open up the State of Oregon’s reuse rules. Something similar happened in Arizona. As a direct outcome of the reuse project there, reuse rules are being updated. Reuse is less about technology—we have that—and more about public perception and acceptance.

In 2019, we are deploying something called a Pure Water Wagon, which is a mobile high-purity water treatment facility that we can use to produce this water at a much higher rate. It is a public education tool. It is a 32-foot-long standalone treatment facility that has swing-

up doors like a food stand at a fair. People can go in and actually look at the technology and learn about how we use it.

Joshua Dill: What is your vision for the future?

Mark Jockers: My vision for the future is that people understand that there’s only one water. In our industry, we tend to balkanize everything into storm water, wastewater, gray water, drinking water, and irrigation water. We need to think of all water as water. My vision is that people come to understand that and accept reuse as a safe, reliable, and drought-resistant source of water that we should be taking advantage of. M

Mark Jockers is the government and public affairs manager at Clean Water Services. For more about the Pure Water Brew competition, visit purewaterbrew.org.

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New Trends in Chemigation

A

gri-Inject is a pioneer in the chemigation field. Since the 1980s, the Yuma, Colorado–based company has been promoting the use of mobile irrigation systems to apply fertilizer and chemicals in liquid form. This method of applications allows for the quick, low-volume, and continuous applications of liquid chemicals, which is particularly valuable for water-intensive crops like potatoes and vegetables.

In this interview, Erik Tribelhorn, chief executive officer (CEO) of Agri-Inject, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about how Agri-Inject is educating farmers on the benefits of chemigation.

Kris Polly: How long have you been with Agri-Inject?

Erik Tribelhorn: I’ve been with the company during two different stints, first from late 1991 to May 1999, and second from October 2011 to the present—about 15 years in total.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

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Erik Tribelhorn: I started at the University of Colorado Boulder for my first year. I spent my sophomore year at Northeastern Junior College on a basketball scholarship. I spent the next 18 months at Colorado State University, but I didn’t graduate. I was 18 or 21 credits away from a degree in business management when I ran out of money and decided to take a couple of years off and get some work experience.

I got so involved in business that I still haven’t finished the degree; anyway, I felt that the experience that I was getting through my work was as valuable, if not more valuable, than taking the time to finish my degree. I learned a lot through my schooling, but I feel that the real-world experiences of running a business were of much greater value.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about Agri-Inject as a company.

Erik Tribelhorn: Agri-Inject was by founded in 1983 by Gary Newton, a farmer in the Yuma and Wray area of northeastern Colorado. Irrigation became prevalent in the area during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Mr. Newton recognized that it was possible to inject liquid chemicals and fertilizer into an irrigation system and apply those products simultaneously with the water.

Since electric irrigation was becoming more and more reliable at that time, the idea of chemigation was a viable one, and the business he had started on his farm kept growing.

In the late 1980s, the company moved to Yuma, Colorado,

PHOTO COURTESY OF AGRI-INJECT.

Erik Tribelhorn: I am from northeastern Colorado, and I knew the founder of the company, Gary Newton, through his son, who was my age. I started at Agri-Inject in 1991 as my first job out of college. I started in an inventory control position and did whatever else was needed. The company was going through a difficult transitional time at that point, so there were a lot of gaps that needed to be filled, and I had a lot of opportunities to stick my nose into different areas and help out wherever I could. During those first few years, I worked my way up to general manager with ownership opportunities.

In 1999, I left the company for 12 years, during which time I was involved in a Valley Irrigation dealership, but I stayed on Agri-Inject’s board of directors. That gave me the opportunity to keep my eye on the business. I’ve always been interested in the manufacturing business and the complexity and challenges that manufacturers face. In addition, I have investments in retail businesses, I have started multiple service businesses and a marketing business, and I was in the irrigation business from a dealership perspective. When I came back to Agri-Inject in October 2011 as the CEO, that experience helped me understand the mindset and expectations of our irrigation dealer channel. That gave us an edge in how we positioned our products and structured our programs.

Kris Polly: Where did you go to school?

ADVERTISEMENT Kris Polly: Why should farmers use chemigation?

Small chemigation units for insecticide and fungicide, known as insectigators.

and in 1991, it moved to its current facility. In the meantime, it acquired dealers around the nation and the world. Today, Agri-Inject employs 21 people and has over 400 dealers worldwide, regularly selling products across 6 continents.

We have five major product lines, and we strategically offer numerous options and combinations for every final good. This allows any system to be customized optimally for a particular application. Features that can be changed include pump size, input power, material of construction, control technology, plumbing assemblies, and more. We can even produce privatelabel products with unique colors and logos for dealers and large customers since we do all of our own plastic molding in house. All our manufacturing is performed in Yuma, and our staff diligently manages the inventory required to ensure that we are meeting customer expectations. We try to serve our customers and our dealers within a 24- to 72-hour lead time, while dealing with vendor lead times that can range from 4 to 8 weeks.

On the sales side, we deal with irrigation dealers, chemical fertilizer dealers, general farm supply dealers, seed dealers, chemical applicators, and more. We also have relationships with center-pivot manufacturers, domestic and international.

All those companies do business in different ways and respond to programs differently. They have different seasonalities and unique ways in which they market our product. This business keeps us on our toes both operationally, given our product complexity and quick delivery goals, and from a marketing perspective, because of the varying nature of our sales channels and the ag economy in general.

Erik Tribelhorn: Chemigation, as its name suggests, is a process where two things are being done simultaneously: the application of water and the application of a chemical, be it a fertilizer, an insecticide, a wetting agent, sulfuric acid, or anything else. This is more efficient than doing the two things separately, both in terms of labor and in terms of material costs. It also saves a trip over the field, thus reducing costs, compaction, risk, and crop damage. Chemigation is accurate and precise for two reasons. First, today’s irrigation systems and nozzle packages are typically highly engineered and reliable and deliver water accurately with little waste. Second, our injection systems are extremely accurate and repeatable, time after time. This means that the applied chemical gets to the crop at the specified rate, on time, with extreme uniformity, without any skips or overlaps, and with minimal off-target application risk. With chemigation, the grower has control of his or her own timing and governs his or her own fate. The ability to feed the crop fertilizer according to its needs is an advantage for growers. It is good for plant health, soil health, cash flow, and the management of risk.

Further, if you apply all your fertilizer at once and you have a big rain event, that fertilizer could be washed away or driven down beneath the root zone. That danger doesn’t exist if you apply it continuously. We like to say that the soil is a really poor place to store your fertilizer. Overapplying fertilizer early puts those nutrients at risk of leaching, changing form, or being inaccessible after a catastrophe like a hailstorm. Spoon feeding can mitigate such risks and is a good habit to get into. Changing habits is tough, but I think the benefits far outweigh the pain of changing management processes. When you spoon feed your fertilizer, you’re spoon feeding your money. From a business perspective, that’s a smart thing to do.

Kris Polly: What are Agri-Inject’s main challenges?

Erik Tribelhorn: Our stated mission is to educate irrigating farmers to believe in and understand the validity of chemigation and fertigation. Our primary challenge is creating methods and materials that help growers understand that chemigation is a viable method of application and can be better than alternative methods, especially with certain crops, certain types of chemicals, and certain regions.

Kris Polly: What kind of trends do you see in fertigation and chemigation?

Erik Tribelhorn: I see that regulations and mandates are becoming more and more prevalent in the industry, certainly around water and chemicals but around nitrogen as well.

It is critical that we keep our water supplies clean and soils healthy. I believe that responsible fluid injection can be a key component in addressing some of these issues. Applying chemicals in the water reduces off-target exposure. Applying MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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ADVERTISEMENT nitrogen in amounts limited to what the plant can uptake will minimize runoff and leaching, protecting waterways from contamination, with no effect on yield.

The industry is certainly heading toward automation, including in irrigation. Before automation technologies were introduced, if you had center pivots running, you had to check on those two or three times a day by driving out to the fields and verifying that the end towers were moving.

Nowadays, with telemetry technology, you can do that from your phone. That technology is becoming reliable and has pervaded the industry. Our ReflexCONNECT product allows for the remote control and monitoring and the automatic documentation of chemigation and fertigation as well. We want to add value to growers with the connected features, including reporting, and to remove any pain or roadblocks associated with using this process.

Kris Polly: What are the areas of the United States where chemigation is not currently being used, but should be?

Erik Tribelhorn: Five or six years ago, there was a significant drought in the middle and eastern regions of the United States, and in response, a lot of irrigation systems were installed in that area, primarily as an insurance policy.

Farmers there don’t usually need to irrigate, but in extreme situations, the ability to do so could save their farms. What I hope they’re now realizing is that those irrigation systems are also giant spray booms. They can use them to effectively apply insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and more. Those eastern U.S. farms may only use their irrigation systems for 100–200 hours a year, compared to totals upward of 1,800 hours in the West, but farmers should make the most of those 100–200 hours by applying chemicals or fertilizers at the same time that they apply water.

The truth is that any place where irrigation is used is usually a candidate for some sort of chemical or fertilizer injection.

The key to spreading the technology’s use is education.

A 110-gallon-per-hour fertilizer pump sysytem.

Kris Polly: What is your message to irrigators?

Erik Tribelhorn: You have a high-value irrigation device in your field that is well made and works at high levels of precision. Water is only one of the things it can be used to apply. With chemigation and fertigation, your irrigation system can treat your water, your soil, and any crops in the field, resulting in a tremendous benefit to your bottom line. Chemigation makes sense both economically and agronomically for every irrigating farmer. M

28 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

A 90-gallon chemigation unit.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AGRI-INJECT.

Erik Tribelhorn is the CEO of Agri-Inject. He can be reached at erik@agri-inject.com.

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Participants at the 2018 Water Leader Summit.

CALLING ALL WATER LEADERS!

T

he Water Council is a Milwaukee-based nonprofit organization that drives economic, technology, and talent development to support the global water industry.

For 12 years running, The Water Council has convened an annual Water Leaders Summit to bring water professionals and innovators together in an atmosphere of collegiality, creativity, and curiosity.

In this interview, Dean Amhaus, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of The Water Council, tells Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about this year’s Water Leaders Summit and why readers of this magazine should consider attending.

Joshua Dill: For readers who may not already know you, would you introduce yourself and your organization?

30 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Joshua Dill: Tell us about the Water Leaders Summit.

Dean Amhaus: The Water Leaders Summit is a yearly conference held in Milwaukee. We hold the event at the Harley-Davidson Museum and typically have around 300 attendees. This is our 12th summit. I can remember back when we held the first one—it was a 2-hour session with about 60 people in attendance. We asked, “Should we keep on meeting?” Twelve years later, we’re still meeting, and more importantly, we’re acting on growing our cluster.

It’s a different type of summit than it was when we started. We place an emphasis on conversations and bringing in thought leaders. We are trying to bring together people from outside the traditional water industry who have different approaches and ideas. Instead of straightforward presentations about “who we are and what we do,” what happens on the stage is more about people telling stories.

Charles Fishman, the author of the award-winning book The Big Thirst, interviews each of the panelists ahead of the

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WATER COUNCIL.

Dean Amhaus: I serve as president and CEO of The Water Council and was one of the individuals who helped found the whole organization. We are a water technology cluster or hub located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We’ve got almost 240 water technology companies within about a 1½-hour drive— not only companies and universities, but also innovative, creative utilities that want to take novel approaches to water

management. Our organization brings them all together and makes connections. We have a particular interest in helping small businesses to grow and develop.

ADVERTISEMENT summit, and then leads a conversation with them on stage. It’s quite engaging for both the panelists and the audience.

What we’ve focused on for the last couple of years is the broader spectrum of the water industry—both utilities and the large water users whom utilities supply. We’re engaging those companies to learn about their practices around water.

This year, we’re also going to be starting to look at the financing of water projects, from infrastructure to technology.

The sponsors of the 2019 Water Leaders Summit include Rexnord; the A. O. Smith Corporation; Badger Meter, Inc.; the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; Marquette University; MillerCoors; the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation; and the Fund for Lake Michigan.

Joshua Dill: Who should consider coming to the Water Leaders Summit?

Dean Amhaus: None of the sessions are technical in nature, which means that the conference is of value to a wide variety of participants. For example, we have a partnership with Neroli Salon & Spa, Aveda Institute Madison, and the Institute of Beauty and Wellness here in Milwaukee. The institute’s students are raising scholarship funds for other students who are exploring projects or careers in water. As part of our relationship with the institute, we invite some of their students to come to the summit to expand their knowledge about the role of water in our communities.

These are people who are on the front lines of water usage, given their jobs in the salons, so we want them to gather information and to broaden their awareness and knowledge.

Then we also have the CEOs of corporations and water tech companies. We get large water users and utilities. We have international participants as well. We’ve got a delegation coming from Germany, and I also anticipate having participants from Denmark, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.

Joshua Dill: What do your attendees get out of the summit?

Dean Amhaus: One person at the 2018 summit said that they wrote down more notes during the summit than at any other conference they had ever attended. I think the primary reason for that is that we emphasize storytelling. People don’t remember litanies of factoids—they remember stories.

I can’t remember a PowerPoint slide with a lot of numbers and charts, but I can remember a story I heard at last year’s summit told by a presenter from General Mills. He described how one of their yogurt facilities in China had had to toss out its entire inventory and be temporarily shut down because of water contamination. It cost the company millions of dollars, and the issue made it all the way up to the CEO. People remember stories, so that is what we aim to give to attendees.

Joshua Dill: What have been the results of the networking that goes on at your conference?

Dean Amhaus: Last year, we heard about people making connections and having dinner with each other after the sessions, so this year we’re looking into how we might facilitate even more engagement on the conference’s first day.

We’re trying to create opportunities for dialogue. I know that at one of our past summit, two individuals who previously didn’t know each other happened to be seated across the table from each other and ended up doing business together.

What goes on during the reception or in the hallway is just as important as what’s going on on stage.

Joshua Dill: You mentioned that financing is going to be one of the topics of this year’s summit. What are the new developments that the presenters are going to discuss?

Dean Amhaus: We are trying to get somebody to come in and talk about corporate governance, particularly about how large institutional investors are increasingly paying attention to a corporation’s water sustainability plan as a factor in determining its financial risk. We will also discuss the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) and how this program can help corporations who are large water users. Somebody from Procter and Gamble will be there to talk about the company’s extensive involvement in AWS. Puon Penn from Wells Fargo will speak about his business’s investments into small businesses and entrepreneurs. He’s quite in tune with what’s going on in California with water trading, so he will also be discussing that.

Joshua Dill: If any of our readers is interested in taking part in the summit, what should they do?

Dean Amhaus: They should visit our website, thewatercouncil.com, where they can register and find more information about it. I would suggest that they register quickly, because we did sell out last year. Our summit happens at the same time as Milwaukee’s Summerfest music festival, which takes place just 10 minutes away, so hotel rooms will be going quickly as well. We encourage potential participants to register and book their hotels now. We can certainly help with that. We have hotel room blocks, but they do go quickly. We expect that the Water Leaders Summit is going to be sold out again. M

Dean Amhaus is president and CEO of The Water Council. For more information about the Water Leaders Summit, please contact Taylor Baseheart at tbaseheart@thewatercouncil.com or at (414) 988-8932.

MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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HOW ICF PROVIDES ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE SERVICES TO THE WATER INDUSTRY

I

CF is a global consultancy that provides environmental policy and compliance services to irrigation districts, municipalities, and government agencies across the United States and the world. Its services include ensuring compliance with all relevant laws and regulations as infrastructure projects go through the complex permitting process. ICF also helps irrigation districts and other clients prepare for natural disasters, such as droughts.

In this interview, Pablo Arroyave, a principal at ICF, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about ICF’s work with water projects and what every irrigation district should know about the permitting process.

34 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Pablo Arroyave: I have spent the vast majority of my career thus far with the Bureau of Reclamation. I left in September 2017 after 21 years there, mostly in the midPacific region. Since September 2017, I have worked for ICF as a water resource consultant in Sacramento, California. ICF was founded in 1969, and the part of the organization that I’m aligned with is the result of the acquisition by ICF of Jones & Stokes Associates a decade ago. ICF has a strong environmental compliance presence throughout the West and nationwide.

ADVERTISEMENT A dam on Battle Creek, forming part of a salmon restoration project.

Kris Polly: What does ICF stand for?

Pablo Arroyave: ICF originally stood for Inner City Fund and was cofounded in Washington, DC, in 1969 by C. D. Lester, a Tuskegee Airman. It aimed to empower businesses and assist governments as part of the social and environmental movement of the 1960s, out of which national environmental regulations and other reforms emerged. The initials ICF no longer relate to that original mission of urban renewal, but the core purpose of navigating environmental regulations for multibenefit projects and policies remains.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about ICF as a company.

Pablo Arroyave: ICF provides professional services and technology solutions in areas critical to the world’s future, addressing some of the most complex challenges facing our clients. ICF has over 5,000 employees in 65 offices worldwide.

We are a recognized leader in environmental services, specializing in regulatory compliance, permitting, and an array of integrated services in environmental planning and natural resource services. Certainly in the West, we’re recognized as leaders in permitting and all aspects of environmental compliance. While the last century was characterized by shaping society via infrastructure improvements, we believe that this century and centuries beyond will be characterized by addressing the management of resources, including water.

Kris Polly: So when someone is building a project, ICF helps them comply with state and federal permitting requirements?

Pablo Arroyave: That’s correct. Many of our clients have to go through a complex permitting process that ensures compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act, and state and municipal laws. Our services cover the whole gamut of permitting.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ICF.

Kris Polly: Who are your clients?

Pablo Arroyave: We serve anyone seeking objective, sciencebased, and fair analytical advice. Our clients range from the smallest irrigation districts to the largest entities, including cities, counties, and federal and state agencies. I work directly with a handful of water agencies to provide advisory and policy services throughout the Central Valley of California.

No matter what state you’re in, we’ve developed expertise and relationships based on our reputation for over 50 years.

Kris Polly: Do you operate internationally as well?

Pablo Arroyave: Yes. We’re headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, but have offices worldwide and operate internationally. We have been involved in everything from climate change research and planning to infrastructure improvements, public health, and emergency management.

We work with some large, international companies. What sets us apart from other companies is that we treat each client’s problems as if they are our own. We make their world our world.

Kris Polly: Would you tell us about ICF’s involvement in water projects?

Pablo Arroyave: Right now, ICF is the environmental consultant for Sites Reservoir, a new off-stream water storage project in Northern California. ICF has provided environmental compliance services for California WaterFix, the Central Valley Project, California’s State Water Project, and small local projects. We have been involved in environmental compliance for much of the West’s water landscape, ranging from the Columbia River to the Colorado River. Our specialty is balancing the often-competing objectives of water supply, flood management, habitat functions, and public benefits. We have worked on habitat restoration projects for salmon in the Pacific Northwest, Battle Creek, the Trinity basin, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, just to name a few examples.

Kris Polly: Would you tell us more about Sites Reservoir?

Pablo Arroyave: Sites Reservoir is a proposed surfacestorage project about 100 miles north of Sacramento. Its purpose is to store and release water that is not currently captured in wet years. Its proposed capacity is 1.8 million acre-feet. The Sites Project Authority, formed in 2010, is governed by a board of directors whose 15 members are drawn from seven regional entities, including local water agencies and counties. The board of directors also includes the Bureau of Reclamation and the State of California as nonvoting members.

Kris Polly: What would be the primary use of the water stored in the reservoir?

Pablo Arroyave: The water yield would serve environmental purposes as well as municipal and irrigation demands throughout California, both Northern and Southern.

Kris Polly: What key things should water project designers and owners be aware of as they move through the permitting process?

MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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Overview of an intake in the Freeport Regional Water Project.

Pablo Arroyave: Project proponents should be flexible, keeping an eye on primary project needs, but able to change course if there’s an advantage in taking a different approach.

Getting the right multidisciplinary expertise involved early on in the project is also critically important. It takes experience and skill to be able to maneuver through some of those changes. For example, we’re helping the agencies under the U.S. Department of the Interior adapt streamlined processes associated with meeting National Environmental Policy Act and ESA requirements. The result is more concise compliance documents and shorter time frames for decisionmaking. This is an exciting, fast-paced time that is quite different from what we saw 2–3 years ago. This is not a new experience for ICF, as we also assisted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in completing its national pilot project for planning modernization and approval streamlining in 2013.

Kris Polly: I know every project is different and permitting requirements can vary, but is there any rule of thumb about how long a project proponent should expect the permitting process to take?

Pablo Arroyave: It really depends. On a small project with a small footprint, you can get through the process in a few months. If it’s a larger project like Sites requiring a number of permits and environmental compliance steps, it can take several years.

Pablo Arroyave: Yes. We were been involved in droughtrelief efforts several years ago. We helped with emergency wells that were put in place in the Central Valley. Currently, I

36 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Kris Polly: Does your company help with disaster preparedness?

Pablo Arroyave: We help water districts with drought contingency planning. The common denominator of drought contingency planning efforts, even for small irrigation districts, is the need to make sure that you’ve fully explored all the available options within your control. That may mean engaging in transfer markets. For example, if a particular purveyor can do without a certain volume of water for a period of time, it may choose to transfer that supply to a water user in need. The funding that results can allow completion of capital improvement projects that could strengthen future drought resilience for the purveyor. Drought contingency planning helps an organization focus on the resources it has and ensure that it is using those assets in the way that is best over the long term. Another aspect of our water practice is flood management preparedness. Whether the issue is not enough water or too much, ICF can help. M

Pablo Arroyave is a principal at ICF. He can be reached at pablo.arroyave@icf.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ICF.

Kris Polly: I know ICF has worked on disaster recovery in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Has it also worked on disaster recovery in the lower 48 states?

work closely with clients to diversify their water portfolios, specifically in response to the challenges they faced in the 2013–2016 drought. We have also been involved in hurricane recovery efforts, helping provide easily accessible information to affected people and agencies.

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3

rd ANNUAL

2019 CONFERENCE

TAP INTO A GLOBAL NETWORK OF WATER INDUSTRY LEADERS The Water Council’s Water Leaders Summit is an annual water industry conference that brings together water business leaders, governmental entities, academics, entrepreneurs, and futurists from around the world for curated conversations about vital current global water challenges and the future of water innovation.

Milwaukee, WI

26–27

JUNE

2019

Harley-Davidson Museum

®

Bridging the gap between idea + achievement Offices worldwide

Upcoming Events

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April 1–3 Federal Water Issues Conference, NWRA, Washington, DC April 2–3 Texas Water Day, Texas Water Conservation Association, Washington, DC April 3–5 Central Valley Tour 2019, ACWA, Sacramento, CA April 8–11 USSD Conference and Exhibition, U.S. Society on Dams, Chicago, IL April 10 Round Table, Nebraska Water Resources Association, Lincoln, NE May 2–3 17th Annual Truckee River Field Study Course, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV May 7 ACWA Legal Briefing and CLE Workshop, ACWA, Monterey, CA May 7–10 Spring Conference, ACWA, Monterey, CA May 8 Round Table, Nebraska Water Resources Association, Lincoln, NE May 16 Well Regulations Workshop, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV May 17 Annual Meeting, Arizona BWC, Tempe, AZ May 22–24 WSWC/CDWR Sub–Seasonal to Seasonal Precipitation Forecasting Workshop, Western States Water Council, San Diego, CA May 23 8th Annual Water Reuse in Texas, WateReuse, McAllen, TX June 5–7 Bay–Delta Tour, ACWA, Sacramento, CA–San Francisco, CA June 5–7 Summer Conference, GMDA, Salt Lake City, UT June 8–9 Water Law & Resource Issues Seminar, Idaho Water Users, Sun Valley, ID June 10 Vested Water Rights Workshop, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV June 10–11 Water Law & Resource Issues Seminar,Idaho Water Users, Sun Valley, ID June 10–12 2019 Annual Meeting, Western Governors Association, Vail, CO June 10–14 Well & Water Week, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV June 11 Well Regulations Workshop, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV June 26–27 Water Leaders Summit 2019, Water Council, Milwaukee, WI July 16–18 190th Summer Council Meetings, Western States Water Council, Leavenworth, WA July 18 Legislative Updates, Nevada Water Resources Association Las Vegas, NV

Past issues of Municipal Water Leader are archived at waterstrategies.com /MuniWaterLeader

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