Calendar of Events

April 2024
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Events available for Registration...

2025 RMWEA Water/Wastewater Fundamentals School
1/20/2025 - 1/24/2025
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RMWEA Collections Conference
4/17/2025
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Events in the month of April 2024
4/4/2024 - 4/5/2024
Approximately 200 water-related engineers, operators, technicians, project/utility managers, consultants, students and more are expected in Albuquerque, NM for the 9th Annual New Mexico Water Workshop on April 4-5, 2024.
The theme for the 2024 Workshop is “Ripple Effect: Addressing Water Scarcity”.  
Early bird registration by March 11th, 2024
4/9/2024
The Collection Committee is hosting its annual Collection Expo, where operators, engineers, vendors, and suppliers can get together for a one-day workshop for learning and networking opportunities! Learn about new and upcoming technologies to implement within your collection system design and operation while earning TUs! We will also have ten vendors on site with booths with plenty of opportunities to talk with them about their products and services! So sign-up today. Space is limited to the first 80 participants. For more information, check out the Event Flyer here!  Click here for location informtaion.
4/10/2024
The IWT committee would like to welcome you to our first virtual seminar of the year, focused on Sludge Intensification and Destruction. Classic anaerobic digestion has long been considered the standard for treating solids waste, but as new regulatory, environmental, and fiscal constrains build, that paradigm is being questioned in favor of novel approaches. Rising focus on process efficiency and land application – especially when it comes to emerging contaminants like PFAS – will soon force utilities to consider how they might improve their digestion processes, or potentially eliminate them altogether. In this virtual seminar, we will discuss three technologies that apply well known mechanical equipment and physical concepts in unconventional ways. One application intensifies digester operation by decoupling SRT from HRT by modifying digester pressure, potentially lowering future capital and operating costs. Two other technologies focus on potentially supplanting digestion by processing the feed sludge directly through thermal breakdown and energy recovery. The result is a variety of byproducts that could help fuel a facility’s entry into the Green Economy. An open discussion will follow. 

Schedule:
  • 12:00 – 12:05   Opening and Introductions
    • Christopher Marks, City of Boulder
    • Dmitriy Zinchenko, HDR
  • 12:05 – 12:35   Using Hydrothermal Processing (HTP) to Break Down Municipal Biosolids
    • James Oyler, Genifuel
  • 12:35 – 1:05   IntensiCarbTM a Novel Vacuum Augmented Anaerobic Digestion Process for Process Intensification and Resource Recovery
    • Chris Muller, Brown and Caldwell
  • 1:05 – 1:35   Recovering Valuable Resources from Biosolids Through Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC)
    • Dan Spracklin, SoMax Circular Solutions
  • 1:35 – 1:50   Round Table Discussions and Audience Questions
We hope you will be able to join us and this fantastic group of speakers! Please reach out to Dmitriy Zinchenko Dmitriy.Zinchenko@hdrinc.com with any questions. Registration is not required.
 
4/11/2024
Join us for a Membership Appreciation Happy Hour event on the Rooftop Lounge at McCarthy Building Companies’ office located downtown. Free parking in the garage. Happy hour will have drinks and appetizers with a cornhole tournament and other fun activities. RSVP now to reserve your spot today! More information to come.



This event is sponsored by Victaulic.

Please RSVP here: https://forms.gle/9zBK8baQg89eNpTi6
4/15/2024
The Rocky Mountain Section of the American Water Works Association and the Rocky Mountain Water Environment Association are proud to partner with the University of Denver to deliver two cohorts of the Rocky Mountain Leadership Academy in 2024.

This two-day program develops the knowledge, tools, and skills today’s leaders need to successfully manage and lead a team. The curriculum combines academic knowledge and industry practices to deliver a comprehensive program, which benefits professionals from a variety of backgrounds.

Whether you have a few years of experience in leadership or are stepping into a management role for the first time, the Rocky Mountain Leadership Academy will help you reach your leadership potential.

We have scheduled two cohorts in different locations for your convenience:

Denver Water (1600 W 12th Ave, Denver, CO 80204) - April 15 and April 22
Parker Water & Sanitation District (13939 Ancestry Dr, Parker, CO 80134) - September 12 and September 26
4/18/2024
Water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) face increasingly stringent nutrient limits. Traditionally, WRRFs have employed energy-intensive biological methods for nitrogen removal and combined biological and chemical techniques for phosphorus removal, and often require costly external carbon sources and significant operational expenses. The partial-nitritation anammox (PNA) pathway has shown potential for mainstream deammonification to reduce carbon substrate, energy, and alkalinity consumption compared to conventional nutrient removal. However, over the past 10 years, several implementation challenges related to “out-selection” of nitrite-oxidizing organisms (NOB) were uncovered. As a more feasible and easier-to-control alternative, the development of the PdNA pathway was pursued. Likewise, PdNA has the potential to help WRRFs meet nutrient limits while also improving efficiency and reducing energy consumption, carbon emissions, sludge production, and overall costs. PdNA provides a number of process intensification opportunities: 

1. It enables redirection away from the biological reactor because it requires a fraction of the carbon for nitrogen removal resulting in reduction in BNR footprint. 
2. It allows operation near the minimum SRT without introducing additional risk because of its ability to remove ammonia anoxically via anammox bacteria resulting again in further reduction in tank volume need and significantly less aeration. 
3. It uses carriers for selective anammox retention which allows for more compact reactor design. 
4. It integrates the PdNA and bio-P processes, which will offer the simultaneous removal of phosphorus and nitrogen in the same reactor and minimize the reliance on external carbon. 

This presentation will discuss the development of PdNA and its potential to significantly reduce operational and capital costs for nitrogen removal upgrades. The presenter (Jose Jimenez) will cover the concepts, lessons learned from two major and leading utilities in this field, applicability in the general sense, and specific applications for utilities specially under the anticipated TN discharge requirement.

Speaker: Jose Jimenez, Brown and Caldwell
Jose is a Vice President and Senior Process and Technical Specialist at Brown and Caldwell who has been involved with the functional design of numerous wastewater treatment plants across the U.S. Jose currently serves as Brown and Caldwell’s Director of Technology Innovation. Jose received his PhD at the University of New Orleans and is a licensed professional engineer in multiple states, a board-certified environmental engineer by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, and a WEF Fellow.

Luncheon Format and Location:
This month’s luncheon will be held virtually. Sorry, you must bring your own lunch. 😊 Instructions on how to register are in the next paragraph. The presentation will begin at 12 noon on the above date (Mountain time, of course). The presentation will be broadcast using Microsoft Teams. Folks who have registered for the luncheon will receive an email the day before with a link to the meeting. Please be sure your microphone is muted, and camera turned off when you join the meeting. The first is obvious and the latter is to reduce bandwidth required. At the end of the presentation, we will hold a Q&A session. For Q&A, please post a message in the Chat window that you have a question, and Steve will call on folks in order. You don’t have to state your question in the Chat area, but you can if you want. Otherwise just turn on your microphone when Steve calls on you.

Registration:
A registration fee of $10 is being imposed for all attendees who are a member if either RMWEA or RMSAWWA. Non members are assessed a registration fee of $15. These are reduced from our typical registration amounts to reflect the online nature of the event. Registration and payment for TAC luncheons will be handled at: TAC Registration . Registration may be made for a single attendee or for multiple attendees in a group. It is requested that each individual in a group either register individually or are included in the count for a group registration, and that multiple parties are not partaking in the presentation without registering. If for some reason you are unable to register online, please contact Steve Polson (303-748-0931), or at steve.polson@jacobs.com, to arrange for paying with check or cash.

The registration deadline for this event is Wednesday, April 17, at COB. We will send out the link for the luncheon to the email addresses per the registration site by the end of the day on Wednesday. If you registered a group, please pass along the link to the members of your group. Please note the Teams program does not need to be installed on your computer to participate. When you click the link provided in the email, an option to participate through your browser is offered. There will also be a call-in number, but it is hoped that nobody is forced to do that, as you will only receive the audio. If you registered but do not receive the email on Wednesday, please call Steve Polson (303-748-0931) on Thursday morning to determine how to get you the link.
The program will start at 12 noon sharp. Please be sure and connect before 12 noon to avoid missing anything.
4/22/2024
The Rocky Mountain Section of the American Water Works Association and the Rocky Mountain Water Environment Association are proud to partner with the University of Denver to deliver two cohorts of the Rocky Mountain Leadership Academy in 2024.

This two-day program develops the knowledge, tools, and skills today’s leaders need to successfully manage and lead a team. The curriculum combines academic knowledge and industry practices to deliver a comprehensive program, which benefits professionals from a variety of backgrounds.

Whether you have a few years of experience in leadership or are stepping into a management role for the first time, the Rocky Mountain Leadership Academy will help you reach your leadership potential.

We have scheduled two cohorts in different locations for your convenience:

Denver Water (1600 W 12th Ave, Denver, CO 80204) - April 15 and April 22
Parker Water & Sanitation District (13939 Ancestry Dr, Parker, CO 80134) - September 12 and September 26
4/25/2024
The IWT committee is happy to invite you to a tour of the Zero Liquid Discharge pilot on Thursday, April 25th at Red Rocks Community College Water Quality Technology Center. Thanks to funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Pitch to Pilot Desalination Research Program, Garver tested and advanced the use of a zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) process train to reclaim the saline blowdown from a 600-ton commercial cooling tower at Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, Colorado. The project team included Dr. Mike Mickley and more than 12 water industry technology and service providers. Treated water from the 1.5 GPM pilot system, consisting of electrocoagulation (EC), ultrafiltration (UF), granular activated carbon (GAC), and reverse osmosis (RO) was returned to the cooling tower to improve recirculation water quality and prevent the high saline wastewater from entering the sewershed. The saline concentrate from the RO was treated with vacuum-assisted electro-distillation (VAED) where it produced distilled water and a saturated salt slurry, which was then evaluated as a feedstock for on-site sodium hypochlorite generation.

We hope you will be able to join us for this exciting tour! This is a free tour, but registration is required.
Please reach out to Jason Coontz with any questions: JMCoontz@GarverUSA.com.
We will plan on a happy hour following the tour at the Barrels & Bottles Camp George West location: 1055 Orchard St, Golden, CO 80401

 
4/26/2024
Colleges and universities in the Rocky Mountain region that have formed Water Environment Federation (WEF)/American Water Works Association (AWWA) student chapters have the opportunity to compete in the Annual Rocky Mountain Student Design Competition. This competition is open to both undergraduate and graduate students who compete in teams to showcase their designs for wastewater treatment processes.

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