Pre-Conference Workshops

The Wednesday May 1st Pre-Conference Seminars are approved for CEUs in three-hour blocks. You must stay in the same session for the full three hours in order to earn CEUs. You can change rooms after lunch.

We are offering two off-site tours, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. These have limited seats. The morning tour will return to the convention center for lunch and the afternoon tour will leave following lunch.    (Wednesday pre-con sessions are NOT included in the full conference registration fee. They are an additional fee.)

Morning Sessions

  • Water Efficiency Solutions for Commercial Properties – Part 1 AM Commercial properties can feel like tough customers when it comes to water conservation. While successful water management is a goal for all businesses, commercial users often encounter competing priorities, unforeseen problems, and must track hundreds of water-use endpoints across a property. This hands-on workshop teaches water professionals how to successfully work with commercial properties to improve water management and efficiency in to reduce demand. Attendees will learn technical and managerial requirements of commercial water systems and will learn to identify commonalities with operating a water utility. The workshop will review case studies and solutions that result in effective demand reduction programs and services for both utilities and commercial users.
  • Operator Skills Part 1 – Math for Operators AM This half day workshop covers the basics of math used by water and wastewater operators in their daily work.  The workshop starts with arithmetic basics, algebra and trigonometry, and focuses on the important skill of tracking and changing units.  Example problems covering a wide range of applications will be done as a group followed by an opportunity for operators to work through a second set of examples on their own, compare results and approaches.  Each attendee will be given a copy of the ABC Professional Operator Formula/Conversion Table.  A segment of the workshop is set aside to review this tool and discuss other references available to the operator in their daily routine.
  • Water Supply and ASR Permitting AM The speakers in this preconference seminar will explore the current regulatory environment to help water utilities address some common water quality compliance challenges for municipal Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) systems. Topics will include a newly published DOH policy for permitting ASR programs in Washington State; Oregon’s regulatory framework for protecting water quality as a part of ASR projects, and strategies for addressing PFAS within that framework; and an overview of ASR water quality monitoring requirements and how to avoid duplication with other state and federal requirements.
  • Morning Off-site Tour of Spokane’s Riverside Park Water Reclamation Facility The Riverside Park Water Reclamation Facility is Spokane’s oldest and largest water recycling facility. It can recycle up to 50 million gallons of wastewater per day back to into the Spokane River. It treats the City’s wastewater to near drinking water standards. The facility has won several awards for operations and maintenance excellence and beneficial use of biosolids. The treatment facility has traditional wastewater treatment including screening, primary and secondary settling, disinfection, and solids handling. Of particular interest to drinking water treatment professionals, it also includes tertiary treatment referred to as Next Level Treatment. This includes flocculation and membrane filtration to remove heavy metals, PCBs, and phosphorus. This $125 million dollar expansion was commissioned in 2021.

Afternoon Sessions

  • Water Efficiency Solutions for Commercial Properties – Part 2 PM Commercial properties can feel like tough customers when it comes to water conservation. While successful water management is a goal for all businesses, commercial users often encounter competing priorities, unforeseen problems, and must track hundreds of water-use endpoints across a property. This hands-on workshop teaches water professionals how to successfully work with commercial properties to improve water management and efficiency in to reduce demand. Attendees will learn technical and managerial requirements of commercial water systems and will learn to identify commonalities with operating a water utility. The workshop will review case studies and solutions that result in effective demand reduction programs and services for both utilities and commercial users.
  • PFAS Treatment PM The design and implementation of low-cost, reliable technologies to remove PFAS from drinking water is a priority for utilities due to rapidly evolving technology innovations for PFAS removal nd the evolving regulatory environment driving the need for removal of PFAS compounds to very low levels. Various case studies will be presented, each with its own unique conditions and challenges, that will cover strategies for PFAS management, evaluation of treatment technologies, design/construction challenges, startup and commissioning, and solutions to cost effectively implement treatment.
  • Seismic/Resilience Planning and Projects PM Water systems are complex with many components that must be operable following a major earthquake. Seismic resiliency is an identified gap in our infrastructure preparedness. Speakers will share their experiences with resilient pipe design methodology, seismic certification for new electrical and mechanical equipment that are critical for water operations and seismic evaluation of water storage facilities to inform comprehensive rehabilitation.
  • Operator Skills Part 2 – Understanding Process Control & Diagrams  PM Process & Instrumentation Diagrams, or P&IDs, are the picture book that tells the operator how their treatment process or conveyance system works, how equipment is controlled and what the process feedback and alarms mean.  To understand a P&ID diagram, operators should know how to find what each of the symbols, identification letters, and line types on a drawing signify so that the drawing can be understood and interpreted properly. The objective of this presentation is for the attendee to understand how to read a PID and to understand the story it is telling.P&IDs are common to all treatment processes, water and wastewater. Chemical feed, mixing, pump flow control, tank level control are just a few examples of the multiple processes an operator needs to manage.
  • Afternoon Off-site Tour City of Spokane Electric Well Station and Water System This field trip will consist of four stops with presentations at and in transit to each stop. Attendees will learn about the history of the City’s water system, some operational and monitoring challenges and solutions, and what measures the City is taking to help protect and ensure the long-term reliability of these facilities.

 

 

Platinum Sponsors

Correct Equipment Stantec RH2 Engineering

Gold Sponsors

Parametrix HDR PACE Engineers Core and Main Sundt Kimley Horn

Silver Sponsors

Mead & Hunt Carollo J-U-B Engineers Consor Summit Water Resources DN Tanks Hazen Jacobs David Evans and Associates Inc.