Below is the tentative schedule. The speakers, dates and time may change.
Day 1: Morning Session
Moderator: John Mesenbrink
8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Welcoming Remarks
Dave Viola, Ron Burke, Billy Smith and Kerry Stackpole will share opening remarks and various MC duties throughout.
Introduction of Co-convening Organizations and their leaders, Industry Partners, Special Guests, Benefactors, Patrons, and Supporter Sponsors
Introduction of Moderators: John Mesenbrink of Mechanical Hub, Steven Spaulding of Contractor Magazine, Steve Smith of PHCC Pros and Nicole Krawcke of PM Engineer and Plumbing & Mechanical (from BNP Media).
8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
KEYNOTE Speaker: Robert Puente
Robert Puente, San Antonio Water: Cultivating a Culture of Technology Innovation at San Antonio Water System
9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Non-potable Water Systems: Unique Plumbing Code Considerations
Phillip White, Manager, Plumbing and Mechanical Inspections, City of Vancouver (Canada)
Reductions of both sewer overflows and potable water consumption are key drivers to Vancouver’s non-potable water regulations, which are targeted to the construction and occupancy phases. Mandatory fixture connections, reduced distribution pipe sizing (based on the new IAPMO Water Demand Calculator) and Operating Permits are amongst the non-potable water system requirements unique to the City of Vancouver. Developed in collaboration with various city departments and local health authorities, and in the context of existing regulations, this plumbing code update addresses the complex and sometimes competing objectives for human health protection and environmental sustainability. This presentation will cover technical code elements and lessons learned through implementation and inspections of over three dozen privately operating systems.
9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Opening the Spigot on NIST’s Premise Plumbing Research Activities
Natascha Milesi-Ferretti, Mechanical Engineer, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):
A session at the 2021 EWTS explored research needs of the premise plumbing community, including a list of 59 documented needs drawn from workshops and other stakeholder input that NIST published in 2020. To start addressing some of those needs, NIST initiated several new research efforts in the premise plumbing area. Since that time, solid progress has been made on several fronts, both experimental and model development. On the experimental front, NIST has designed and installed a new laboratory to characterize the pressure-flow relationship of plumbing fittings as well as a facility to study the growth of opportunistic pathogens in hot water systems as a function of temperature, water usage patterns and other factors. These experimental efforts also include a study of pathogen growth in the NIST Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility. On the modeling side, NIST is developing standardized plumbing system models for 3 residential and 4 commercial buildings, which will be documented and made available for others to study the impacts of premise plumbing operation and maintenance and new water use and water quality technologies. NIST is also working on updated heat transfer and dispersion models for potential incorporation into EPANET. This presentation will provide an update on these activities and discuss new research needs that have since been identified.
10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Refreshment Break and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.
KEYNOTE Speaker: Don Johnston
Don Johnston, Senior Operations Director, Indonesia, Water.org
11:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Podium Presentation: The Role of Safety and Performance Requirements in Reinventing the Toilet
Sun Gil Kim, Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The majority of the people in the world do not have access to affordable safely managed sanitation. This has negative impacts on people’s health, safety, education, economic prospects, and dignity, in particular for women and girls. That is why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been working with a large number of partners to Reinvent the Toilet. There are many aspects needing transformation including technologies, finance, products, services, and others. The consensus international standard defining the safety and performance requirements provides a set of normative criteria for use by developers, commercial entities, purchasers, consumers, governments, and regulators and will enable the commercialization and scaling of affordable, safe, and aspirational sanitation systems for both the developing and developed countries.
11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Podium Presentation: An Overview of the Performance Requirements and Likely Regulatory Framework for “Reinvented Toilets”
Edward R. Osann, Senior Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council, Clément Cid, PhD, Senior Research Engineer, Linde+Robinson Lab
In 2018, ISO 30500 was adopted as a product standard for high performance non-sewered sanitation devices (“Reinvented Toilets”). Intended to meet critical public health needs in developing countries with limited water and wastewater infrastructure, ISO 30500 also carries important implications for water and wastewater management in North America, and was published as a US and Canadian national standard by IAPMO in 2019. Rural communities in many states remain beyond the reach of sewers, while facing soil conditions that preclude conventional on-site treatment. Products meeting ISO 30500 could address these and other needs while conserving water supplies in the face of drought and a warming climate. Regulators will need policies that ensure the safe adoption and use of these new products.
This presentation will consist of four parts: a) an outline of ISO 30500, including scope, performance requirements, and test procedures; (b) a comparison of ISO 30500 with other standards and regulations dealing with non-sewered sanitation systems; (c) an overview of some of the technologies and approaches that are currently in development, field testing, and commercial production; and (d) the emerging regulatory framework to protect people and communities that can benefit from the capabilities of the RT. Participants will be challenged to consider where, and how, in their own state, sanitation devices that require no permanent connection to water and sewer lines would add value or fill an unmet need.
12:15 to 1:15 p.m.
Lunch and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Day 1: Afternoon Session
Moderator: Steven Spaulding
1:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Identifying Ways Forward for Implementation of New Water and Sanitation Technologies to Help Improve Living Conditions
Sean Kearney, Managing Director, International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Foundation (IWSH)
For the sanitation economy to continue developing equitably and effectively, both for the Global North and the Global South, it is vital to build grassroots connections with local leaders, nonprofit partners, labor organizations, and manufacturers to ensure that local infrastructure is developed correctly, governance is improved, and conditions are created for better public health and prosperity.
Through the early years of its existence, IWSH has attempted to develop and build further capacity for CSR and community-based water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in different parts of the world. This presentation will highlight lessons learned so far and opportunities ahead, re. adoption and implementation of emerging technologies to support disadvantaged peoples. It will do this by focusing on experiences from two different settings: the Navajo Nation (USA), and India. The presentation will also outline ways for EWTS partners to connect and collaborate in future towards some of these goals.
1:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Implementing Strategies for Water Quality
Kurt Steenhoek, International Representative, and Robert Viches, Training Specialist, United Association
Whether contamination is from lead, bacteria, or chemicals, all piped systems can expose health risks to building occupants. This session lays out a compliance pathway for facility managers, contractors, and craftsmen to operationalize an appropriate response to the exposure of metals, chemicals, or bacteria to building occupants.
2:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Understanding the Need, Benefits and Limitations of Applying Supplemental Disinfection Control In Plumbing Systems
Janet E. Stout, PhD, President and Director, Special Pathogens Laboratory
The risk associated with Legionella bacteria in building water systems is typically assessed at the point-of-use. If significant positivity is detected, remediation efforts are often applied systemically rather than at the point-of-use. Addition of supplemental disinfectants can pose challenges for building owners and operators. Where should risk be mitigated? Are there opportunities to reduce risk using new approaches and products at the point of use (POU)? These approaches and products will be reviewed and compared to system-wide disinfection for the control and spread of Legionella and other waterborne pathogens such as non-tuberculous mycobacteria.
2:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Refreshment Break and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
3:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Effective Risk Management of Building Water Systems for Pathogen Control
Janet Stout, Special Pathogen Laboratory; Kurt Steenhoek, UA; Julius Ballanco, JB Engineering; Matt Freije, hcinfo.com; Christoph Lohr, IAPMO; James Dipping, Environmental Systems Design, Inc.
Description: This panel of esteemed experts will discuss current best practices on water system risk management and what trends they are seeing in building with contaminated water systems.
END of DAY 1
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Evening Networking Reception
Wine, beer, soft drinks and light hors d’oeuvres
Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Day 2: Morning Session: Room A
Moderator – John Mesenbrink
8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Direct Potable Reuse – Can It Be A Consumer Product?
Markus Lenger, Clean Blu Innovation
With water reuse gaining more importance for an ever-growing number of applications and with direct potable reuse becoming a reality, we must address one major challenge in order achieve our goal. Technologies currently employed are far too expensive for meaningful impact or deployment, especially in developing countries. Furthermore, the terms ‘use’ and ‘reuse’ must be redefined to lay the foundation on which to form new standards. Now finally some pioneering and inexpensive approaches deliver price points allowing meaningful implementation and astonishing reliability due to full automation and remote monitoring. Systems so simple in design but incorporating sophisticated monitoring and connectivity have already hit the market – deployable in almost any scenario. Could these technologies be the paradigm shift we need and open a path to affordable, reliable water processing?
8:30 .m. to 9:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: How You Can Apply the Benefits of the WDC to Your Upcoming Projects
Gary Klein, Gary Klein and Associates, Inc.: Right-sizing is the 2nd Domino
This session will share the first cost and operational benefits of utilizing the IAPMO Water Demand Calculator (WDC) on several apartment buildings in New York State. It will also discuss the analysis that has been done to support a petition submitted to the California Building Standards Commission asking for the statewide adoption of UPC Appendix M (WDC) in California. And, of course, we will tell you about the first domino!
9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Water Use in Higher Education Across the USA
Bill Hoffman, H.W. Hoffman & Associates LLC:
How current programs backed by codes, funding and regulations have reduced municipal water use by over 1.2 billion gallons a day. How conservation and reuse, backed by codes standards, funding, and regulations will be used to meet over half of future water demands in Texas. The presentation will discuss providing for more economy on the same water resource; how conservation and reuse will be among the cheapest future supplies and how this can be extrapolated to the whole USA.
9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Emerging Technology for Improving Potable Water Safety in Premise Plumbing
Greg Swafford, CPD, GPD – Sr. Piping Systems Specialist
Utility companies regularly check potable water quality, but are only responsible for delivery of water up to the domestic water service entrance (water meter) inlet. In the building, potable water safety is the building owner’s responsibility. This presentation will identify issues in premise plumbing that negatively impact potable water safety; review the growing importance of water management programs; explore the need for smarter water systems in premise plumbing and describe emerging automation technology’s 4-step concept for improving potable water safety
10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Refreshment Break and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Day 2: Morning Session (Continued) – Room A
Moderator: John Mesenbrink
10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Understanding the Application and Potential of the Water Demand Calculator
Professor Steve Buchberger, University of Cincinnati.
The Water Demand Calculator (WDC) estimates peak indoor water demands in residential buildings that are fitted with efficient fixtures. The current generation of the WDC is an EXCEL spreadsheet available online from IAPMO and also downloadable as a smart phone application. In this sense, the WDC operates as a digital version of Hunter’s curve. However, in a key departure from traditional practice, the WDC employs probability of fixture use rather than Hunter’s fixture units. Comparisons of predicted and measured peak water demands at new residential buildings in North America and Australia consistently show very good agreement between theoretical estimates from WDC and actual readings at water meters. Reflecting this encouraging feedback from the field, the WDC has been incorporated into the newest edition of the AWWA M22 manual of practice on sizing water service lines and meters.
This talk will discuss the work in progress to develop and test the next generation of the WDC with collaborative support from NIST, the Ohio Water Resources Center, the University of Cincinnati and IAPMO. Topics will include [1] extending the WDC computational algorithms to cover commercial and institutional buildings, [2] estimating probability-of-use values for fixtures under congested and non-congested operating conditions, and [3] exploring the prospect of using WDC to create a dimensionless, timeless version of the iconic Hunter’s Curve.
11:00 .m. to 11:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Virus Presence, Prevalence and Fate Within the Building Wastewater Sanitary Plumbing
Michael Gormley, Heriot Watt University, Scotland.
The presentation will set out the state of knowledge with regards the science relating to Virus. At the time of writing, the new Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is spreading around the globe causing great concern surrounding the effectiveness of current mitigation measures. It is still unclear whether Omicron will be more transmissible, will cause greater levels of illness or will react to environmental influences in the same way as its predecessors. While there is uncertainty over these issues, it has become clears that SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19, is here to stay for a while longer yet.
Of immediate concern is the infectivity of faecal matter in wastewater. Until now, wastewater has not been shown to host infective virus and pose an immediate threat from handling, but there is no guarantee that this will remain constant and there is some published evidence of transmission via drainage systems. My team has demonstrated the ease with which viruses and bacteria can become aerosolised inside the drainage systems and the influence of relative humidity and temperature on aerosolization rates on their generation and transmission.
Alongside understanding potential threats from these systems, we have also been working on monitoring the air inside building drainage systems for the presence of viral RNA, which is present even if the virus is not infectious, to assess the prevalence of disease in the building – thus reducing the need for testing individuals. This embryonic work falls under the specific area of Wastewater Based Epidemiology (WBE) which will play a greater role in ongoing surveillance of COVID-19 and other diseases in the future.
11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Predicting Faucet Water Quality, Plumbing Contamination Response and Recovery
Andrew Whelton, Ph.D., Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University
The pandemic and water contamination disasters during the past few years have prompted concerns about building water safety. In response, major advancements in public awareness, technology development, and formal public health and engineering education for building water systems have occurred. This presentation will describe new building water quality prediction tools and insights about recently completed and ongoing studies pertaining to plumbing contamination response and recovery.
Learning Objectives: Explain the utility of new tools developed for predicting building water quality contaminant levels and health risk; Recognize the fate of volatile organic compounds in building plumbing; Compare and contrast actions for removing chemical contamination from plumbing.
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Lunch and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Day 2: Afternoon Session –Room A
Moderator: Steven Spaulding
1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Hot Water Circulation – Benefits, Design and Technologies
Frank Schmidt, Business Development Manager, Kemper (sponsor)
Hot Water Circulation is a known technology. To achieve the optimum design and operating point several factors need to be addressed with respect to the requirements of end users, investors and operators. Standards and regulations put this requirements into a mandatory language to achieve best health and safety for the end-user and minimum energy consumption of the system. The mandatory standards and regulations contain specifications about e.g. water temperatures, stagnation, disinfection and insulation, but represent a framework to achieve a minimum result.
As every installation is unique and best design options are often not identified, this presentation shall point out: how to route hot water supply and return pipework efficiently; how to implement hydraulic balancing for hot water return best; how to use of the Venturi Principle and looped hot water pipe to increase efficiency of a hot water and hot water return installation, and more.
1:30 p.m. to 2:00 pm
Podium Presentation: Sensor and Actuator System Transform Nonwater Urinal Into “Smart” Urinal
Treavor Boyer, Associate Professor, Arizona State University, Co-Author: Daniella Saetta, Graduate student, Arizona State University:
The use of water conserving bathroom fixtures, such as nonwater urinals, has been supported for their potential to conserve large volumes of high quality drinking water. However, unforeseen consequences can occur when nonwater urinals are installed in new and existing buildings. One of the biggest challenges with nonwater urinals is their propensity to clog due to the spontaneous precipitation of undiluted urine salts. Due to the maintenance issues associated with urinal clogging, nonwater urinals have been retrofitted with flushing mechanisms or have been completely replaced with their water-flushing counterparts, ceasing their ability to conserve potable water. Research has shown that acetic acid addition at the urinal decreases urine pH, creating unfavorable conditions for the urea hydrolysis. Urea hydrolysis is the process by which the urease enzyme hydrolyzes urea to form ammonia and bicarbonate, increasing urine pH from 6 to 9. Therefore, urea hydrolysis must be inhibited to avoid clogging caused by precipitation.
2:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Podium Presentation: Introduction to Packaged Plumbing and Mechanical Systems
Conrad L. Jahrling, Product Manager, Water Wellness, Watts
Packaged systems can alleviate concerns with current labor shortages, water quality issues, and pathogen mitigation in plumbing and mechanical industries in an off-the-shelf and cost-effective manner. Learn about how reframing the scope of individual equipment within a plumbing or mechanical system can result in better performance, repeatability across buildings, and lower cost. Learn about how this shift can help mitigate the lack of skilled labor, detrimental effects on equipment performance due to water quality, and the prevalence of waterborne pathogens. Learn about current and future industry practices and their pros and cons.
2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Refreshment Break and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Rejoin Rooms during Break
Day 2: Morning Session – Room B
Moderator: Steve Smith
8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Conservation: Implications for Water Recycling and Reuse
Gregg Eckhardt, Senior Analyst, San Antonio Water System
San Antonio Water System (SAWS) is recognized as a world-class leader in water conservation and reuse. The presentation will discuss the implications of aggressive conservation for wastewater treatment and reuse, including plant design and operating parameter considerations, regulatory challenges, and balancing consumptive reuse with environmental flows in receiving streams. The attendee will gain a perspective on conservation that is often overlooked and learn how to plan for potential unexpected side-effects of applying emerging technologies to water conservation.
8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Changing Community Behaviors: Strategies for Engaging Communities in Reducing Preventable Sanitary Sewer Overflows.
Ryan Prillman, Houston Public Works
This presentation will focus on addressing the source of these preventable SSO’s through education and behavior change. In 2020 HPW developed and launched an updated outreach and education campaign to address these sources, called “Protect Our Pipes.” Through intentional messaging, imagery and implementation, the campaign asks the community to pour FOG in the trash (Pour, Cool, and Toss) and only flush the 3 P’s: Pee, Poo and (toilet) paper. The presentation will focus on the rationale behind the selected messaging and implementation strategies, focusing on research-based methods for effective behavior change. The presentation will also discuss the campaign’s dual approach to promoting city-wide awareness alongside targeted community engagement. Finally, the presentation will cover efforts to measure the success of outreach on changing behaviors and strategies for incorporating both FOG and flushables into one cohesive message.
9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Achieving Secondary Wastewater Treatment Standards using Zero-Energy Combined Treatment and Dispersal Technology
David Lentz, P.E. Regulatory Director, Infiltrator Water Technologies
Combined treatment and dispersal technology (CTD) is a reliable, sustainable, non-electric, low-impact means of treating domestic wastewater to secondary standards and dispersing the treated water to the native soil within the CTD system footprint. CTD technology uses naturally occurring microflora and chemical processes to degrade wastewater organic matter, achieving NSF/ANSI 40 standards for carbonaceous 5-day biological oxygen demand (25 mg/l) and total suspended solids (30 mg/l). Extensive third-party testing has shown CTD technology to meet NSF/ANSI 40 standards immediately upon system start up. CTD technologies include a manufactured wastewater distribution device surrounded by sand conforming with ASTM C33 particle gradation specifications. Septic tank effluent enters the manufactured CTD device, where distribution and filtering occur, followed by additional microbial and chemical treatment in the surrounding ASTM C33-conforming sand, resulting in a treated effluent. Rather than discharging primary-treated wastewater to native soil like a conventional pipe and filter material dispersal field, CTD systems disperse the secondary-treated effluent directly to native soil through an open-bottom design, providing a tangible environmental benefit that is required by Authorities Having Jurisdiction for certain building sites. CTD technology serves both single-family home and large-flow onsite wastewater treatment and dispersal challenges. This presentation focuses on passive, sand-based CTD technology systems; including what they are, how they function, and why they are increasingly becoming an important solution for wastewater management professionals, particularly with respect to difficult construction sites. The presentation concludes with an overview of several of the proprietary technologies in use in the United States and Canada today.
9:30 to 10:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Sensor Data Analytics for Smarter Premise Plumbing Management
Matt Freije, CEO at hcinfo.com
Continuous monitoring of key premise plumbing parameters–combined with smart data analytics–can help building operators avoid mistakes that can lead to growth of Legionella and other waterborne pathogens and save money on their ASHRAE 188 water management program. Attendees of this session will find out key water quality parameters and premise plumbing locations to monitor so that a successful system monitoring program can be designed, specified, or recommended.
10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Refreshment Break and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Day 2: Morning Session (Continued) – Room B
Moderator: Steve Smith
10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Podium Presentation: The Applied Water-Energy Nexus – Using an Integration Framework
Susanna Sutherland, PhD, Principal, Sutherland & Associates
The “water-energy nexus” concept is generally described as the relationship between how much water is used to generate and transmit energy, and how much energy is required to move, treat, and change the temperature of water. Optimizing these relationships can generate increased reliability for both water and energy systems, if there is strong local collaboration across sectors. Cities are systems of systems, and while jurisdictional governance is not going away, some communities and their local utilities are acknowledging water and energy resource interdependencies by combining various approaches that work within their unique physical, social, and financial contexts. These communities are investing time to establish good lines of communication across systems and sectors, and are utilizing four integration cornerstones to achieve shared goals. They are: (1) building trust, (2) leveraging joint customers, (3) sharing and optimizing data, and (4) investing in connecting infrastructure. This presentation is for anyone who wants to understand what integration methods are being tried, and how to systematically plan to implement those most applicable to local conditions. It will summarize findings described in The Applied Water-Energy Nexus: A Framework for Local Water and Energy System Integration, which is built to facilitate mutual consideration of local water and energy systems by governments, their utilities, and other partners
11:00 .m. to 11:30 a.m.
Podium Presentation: Next Generation Water Loss Tracking and Compliance Management
Amit Sharma, Founder and CEO AQUATRAX
Learn about next-generation AI & Cloud based Water Loss Tracking Platforms that will help water agencies and its customers to track water use effectively by lowering the non-revenue water, and be compliant with legislations. These technologies will assist customers and utility staff in SB 555 water loss tracking, SB 606/AB 1668 Water Budget compliance, Online Water Audit, customer app, agency water use analytics, and more.
11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon
Podium Presentation: Conserving Water, Improving Distribution Water Quality While Saving Money – A New Water Main Cleaning Technology to End Dirty Water Complaints and Stop Wasteful Hydrant Flushing Practices
Chris Wilkinson – President NO-DES, Inc.
Historically water utilities have performed extremely wasteful annual distribution system hydrant flushing programs to maintain water quality and ensure its safety. Consequently, enormous amounts of water run down storm drains to waste from each hydrant, even during declared drought emergencies where mandatory conservation or rationing is enacted.
Additionally, the runoff raises ever tightening and restrictive NPDES regulation issues. With the realization that there will never be enough water to waste; is it possible for water utilities to perform distribution system water main flushing in a way that meets water quality goals, conserves water (and money) and enables them to lead by example in water conservation and recycling? Yes!
How well do conventional and unidirectional flushing methods meet these objectives – or can they? Can utilities afford not to practice what they preach to their customers relative to water conservation? Has the time finally come to rethink hydrant flushing and no longer be satisfied with viewing it as a short-term public relations issue that is justified as a necessary evil? Is there a viable, readily available, proven solution to this problem that can actually lower flushing costs and conserve precious water? Yes!
Participants in this session will learn and compare five distribution system flushing/cleaning methods and technologies. They will see how effective each is at removing biofilm, hard tuberculation, iron and manganese, maintaining or improving water quality; including having the option of adding disinfectant into the distribution system. Also covered will be a new method to implement “high pressure water jetting” in pressurized potable water distribution mains without wasteful hydrant flushing; and with less impact on customers, the distribution system or water supplies all while recycling and conserving precious drinking water (and saving monies).
12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.
Lunch and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Day 2: Afternoon Session –Room B
Moderator: Nicole Krawcke
1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Tackling Blind Spots in Water Wastage
Adnan Lehry, Director of Sales, Lehry Valves
This presentation primarily focusses on not just water conservation, but the blind spots that we miss where water is getting wasted, areas where we normally don’t consider and talk on how we can go about tacking such scenarios and how builders & designers can incorporate these with ease into their projects. Water scarcity is an increasing global concern, with approximately 500 million people living in countries where usable water supply is insufficient to support local population. Let’s take an example of one of my own country’s (India) cities –Bangalore.
A study in 2018 revealed that by 2022, Bangalore would run out of ground water, and yet this news didn’t wake the masses. The presentation takes a deeper look into the “Wastage Conundrum” and focusses on wastage sources such as higher than required supply pressures, leakage from prevalent issues like water hammering, low investments in metering systems & tank control systems.
1:30 p.m. to 2:00 pm
Podium Presentation: “We Who Drive Will Never Thirst Again”. Regulatory Discipline Integration in the Automotive World
Dr. Yaron Aviv, R&D Manager, Watergen
Water quality standards describe the desired conditions of potable water and how it can be achieved. Advances in water production technologies raise regulatory issues that differ from anything that regulators have had to deal with in the past. It even gets harder when multi-disciplines are merged on to one product in the automotive world. It is essential to start new era in which automotive will also generate fresh potable water.
2:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Podium Presentation: Toilet Leaks: Early Detection and Preventing Water Loss
Eric Austin, Utilities Advisor
1/5 of the water used in a toilet is wasted due to leaks. The current methods of toilet leak detection in large multifamily properties either involves regular sitewide audits, a vigilant tenant, or a dye tab. By catching these leaks when and where they happen, we can prevent unnecessary water waste that benefits no one. Sensor Industries provides a toilet leak detection technology that tells a property when and where they have a leak, helping teams be more efficient in tackling leaks and saving 15-20% on their indoor water use. Senior and student housing, hotels, housing authorities, and market rate properties can all benefit from addressing these leaks when they happen, preventing the needless waste of purified drinking water.
We would like to showcase case studies we have done in partnership with local water agencies. For example, we installed 100 toilet sensors at a 100 unit senior care home in Oxnard, CA. The property is operated by the Oxnard Housing Authority and a case study of the findings was done in collaboration with Oxnard Water Division. Those findings showed a 14.5% reduction in daily usage, a significant decrease on overall indoor water consumption.
2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Refreshment Break and Visitation of Sponsor Displays
Rejoin Rooms during Break
Day 2: Afternoon Session
Moderator: Nicole Krawcke
3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Implications of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on Drinking Water and Wastewater
Ron Burke, AWE; Dain Hansen, IAPMO; Ed Osann, NRDC; Stephanie Salmon, PMI
The panel will discuss how funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be utilized. They will also discuss the water related content in the Build Back Better act and the prospects for passage of that legislation.
4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Young Water Specialists Presentation
“Team HydroPuris”, Shrey Agarwal, Armaan Jain, Akshay Jilla and Rohan Sha, eCybermission Competition Enabling Access to Clean Drinking Water Using a Portable Water Purification and Testing System
We will discuss our efforts to design and develop a portable water purification and testing system, WPTS, which is a cost-effective and portable filtration device. Many in developing and under-developed countries, underserved areas and those impacted by natural disasters have very limited access to clean and safe drinking water. 1 in 5 people in third world countries don’t have access to clean water. Our system, WPTS, consists of gravel, coconut fibers and rice husks, lemons, seaweed, and sand to kill and filter pollutants, contaminants, and sediments. We have also included a bacteria-killing LED light that will contribute to purification of the water. As the materials are natural and can be found or bought inexpensively, the goal is to keep the price of the unit under $10. The efficiency of the purification system will be measured by an automated testing portion of the device using purity and turbidity. The automated test portion of the device utilizes a novel algorithm to output the final effectiveness value of the system which uses the values of pH, turbidity, and purity. After data was collected using sensors, we demonstrated that WPTS made the water 80% cleaner. Though climate change will continue, and natural disasters will remain a problem; the hope for the future is that the WTPS will be able to help anyone, anywhere and that people will be able to make their own and still have an effective water purification and testing system.