WEFTEC24, my second one, brought a powerful conversation with Jeaniece Slater, General Manager of West Morgan East Lawrence (WMEL) water authority and communications expert Mike McGill of WaterPIO. A key takeaway from that conversation with Slater was that once a utility has determined it needs to act to remediate PFAS, pilot testing is paramount. Every situation is different in terms of saturation and type, and PFAS is even dynamic during treatment. Also, the deadline for lead service lines has passed, so McGill highlighted that being well informed about what the next step in communication with water system customers will be critical.
I also had the pleasure of talking with Gary Hunter, Global Process Technology Leader at Black & Veatch about emerging concerns around microplastics. Although people have been aware of microplastics (and nonoplastics) for quite a while, the industry might be so well to start thinking of them as PFAS redux. Matt McKinnon of Garney Construction also stopped by talked about the company’s approach to PFAS as this issue is still evolving itself.
No less important is the topic of water reuse and its treatment methods. Pranjali Kumar, Southeast Reuse Lead at Carollo Engineers talked through the difference between reverse osmosis-based advanced treatment and carbon-based advanced treatment. To elaborate, Kevin Linder, Advanced Treatment Superintendent at Aurora Water in Colorado and Jason Assouline, Water Reuse Chief Engineer at Carollo spoke to me about the Prairie Waters Project and its potential to be the first application for direct potable reuse in that state.
To see these video interviews, interested readers can go to waterworld.com/videos. To listen to or watch the WEFTEC wrap-up episode of the Talking Under Water podcast, filmed on the show floor, go to wwdmag.com/podcasts. Endeavor Business Media’s water group editors talked about their experiences at the show, and we even got a little silly so you could get to know us better.
I would also like to extend an invitation to submit nominations for WaterWorld’s Top Projects Awards. The nominations stay open all year, and all the information is available on page 6 of this issue.
Read the digital version of WaterWorld November December 2024.
