The Water Leadership Institute program is aimed at educating, training, and providing opportunities that enable developing and emerging leaders to build strong lasting relationships within the water industry. Submit your application to this program for the opportunity to engage in management training and leadership development through a blended learning approach.  Participants in this program are guaranteed to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to affect change within their organizations, to include the examination of complex challenges facing the water and wastewater industries and networking with public and private sector practitioners.

To learn more about how you can join the leaders of 2021 as they grow their knowledge on how to lead the water sector through the preservation and enhancement of water resources for current and future generations, visit www.wef.org/WLI.

Deadline: January 14, 2021 at 11:59 pm EST.

Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts Amherst staff have collaborated to develop a survey intended to aggregate lessons learned from professionals involved in all aspects of wastewater treatment during the massive changes in societal behavior in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of our poll is to integrate learnings, identify patterns, and share this information with the broader community through NEWEA and WEF.

If you have questions or would like to discuss in more detail, please reach out to Nick Tooker (nbtooker@umass.edu) or Amy Mueller (a.mueller@northeastern.edu).

Janine Burke-Wells

NEBRA Executive Director

NEWEA's Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) Committee recently wrapped up a successful webinar series. The five installments, hosted on a monthly basis from mid-summer until late fall, covered a variety of topics related to CECs, including highlighting the current state of CECs, cost impacts of removal technologies, and communicating about CECs with stakeholders.

The third session, “Addressing CECs with innovation”, highlighted four technologies at various stages of development that are in some way addressing PFAS contamination of water, wastewater and biosolids.  BioForceTech, 374 Water, Aclarity, and OnVector were featured in this session, highlighting their innovations for addressing PFAS.

 

BioForceTech has developed a bio-drying and pyrolysis process that has several existing installations. BioForceTech’s process destroys PFAS in the biosolids, which reduces the volume 90%, generating a Class A material and biochar. It is scalable and total operations costs are estimated to be about $20 per wet ton of sludge. 374 Water presented its PFAS destruction technology process based on Supercritical Water Oxidation. 374 Water has some pilot operations established and is currently focused on removing PFAS from landfill leachate, AFFF “rinsate”, and spent GAC. Estimated costs range from $52 per wet ton to $10 per wet ton at economies of scale. To address how CEO Kobe Nagar sees in the water space where "everyone wants to be first to be second", 374 Water established a Collaboration Fund to help with the costs of piloting their technology. 

 

The last two technologies highlighted were primarily designed to remove PFAS in drinking water.  Aclarity has developed an electrochemical oxidation process that is also in the pilot testing stages. Aclarity is also making it easy for pilot testing through partnerships with low initial testing costs. Estimated operating costs are $0.1 per gallon of water treated and looks to be a good option for industrial pretreatment applications. Lastly, OnVector has developed a PFAS/CEC removal process which it calls its Plasma Vortex system. It uses ionized gas designed for destruction or oxidation of specific CECs. OnVector is currently pilot testing its process at groundwater remediation projects. Regarding the “designer” or targeted nature of this technology, CEO and Founder Daniel Cho said “the periodic table is our app store.” 

 

A video recording of this webinar, as well as the others in this series, is available for download on NEWEA's site. Some of the participants in this webinar are involved in EPA’s Innovative Ways to Destroy PFAS Challenge. For more information on this challenge, go to: https://www.epa.gov/innovation/innovative-ways-destroy-pfas-challenge.

NEWEA's Staff and Senior Management Team would like to extend our gratitude to our supporters and members who made a contribution to NEWEA on Giving Tuesday, or at any point during 2020. This year has presented unique challenges that has required us to make changes to the way we work, including transitioning our training, educational, and networking events to a virtual format; raising awareness about the essential work water professionals are performing during the COVID-19 pandemic; and sharing updates and resources relevant to water professionals and New England residents during the current public health crisis.

If you haven't contributed to NEWEA yet, there are still opportunities to make a donation, raise money for NEWEA while you do your shopping, and share your stories about how NEWEA has positively affected you.

Thank you again for your generosity. We greatly appreciate the support of our members, sponsors, and partners.

New England Water Environment Association newea.org