Volume 8 Issue 7 July/August 2021
By Kris Polly The February 2021 winter storm affected huge portions of the United States, but none more seriously than Texas. The famously hot, arid state was plunged into freezing, even subzero, temperatures, and suffered major power outages. Municipal water providers across the state had to keep up their indispensable services amid freezes, blackouts, and unprecedented levels of demand from consumers worried about running out of water. In our cover story, we hear about how Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD), the water wholesaler for the Fort Worth region, had to navigate major power outages and freezes. TRWD Director of Operations Darrell Beason and Water Resource Engineering Director Rachel Ickert tell…
Dig Deep Research: Helping Municipalities Follow the Money for Infrastructure
Grants are vital tools for maintaining and upgrading water infrastructure, but they can be hard to locate and difficult to win. The decentralized nature of information on available grants means that municipal water providers often miss opportunities. To solve this problem, Tia Cavender and Fernando Gonzalez of Dig Deep Research set out to provide a comprehensive database of water infrastructure grants from government agencies. In this interview, Ms. Cavender and Mr. Gonzalez tell Municipal Water Leader about municipalities’ difficulties in finding and obtaining grants, how Dig Deep is providing a central repository of available grants, and how this information is enabling municipal water managers to maximize their dollars for maintaining…
Northwest Pipe’s Perfect Pipe System: A Low-Maintenance Solution for Storm Water and Wastewater Conveyance
Perfect Pipe and the Perfect Lined Manhole are two new lined-concrete products manufactured by Northwest Pipe Company. Easy to install and maintain and with a long lifespan, these products promise long-term savings, and their corrosion resistance makes them ideal for conveying storm water or wastewater. In this interview, Heather Christensen, the technical marketing manager of Geneva Pipe and Precast, a Northwest Pipe Company; Scott Montross, the president and CEO of Northwest Pipe; and Mike Wray, the vice president and general manager of Geneva Pipe and Precast, tell Municipal Water Leader about the virtues of the Perfect line of products.
How Enviropod’s LittaTrap Removes Pollutants From Storm Water at the Source
Simplicity, effectiveness, and versatility are often the hallmarks of innovative technologies and people. Greg Yeoman, Mike Hannah, and their Enviropod company embody those traits. Starting out with the goal of reducing plastic contamination in waterways, they discovered that they could bring their innovative filter technology directly to plastic manufacturers to stop contamination before it began. Since its founding in 1996, Enviropod has become a global force in the effort to clean up beaches, plastic manufacturing sites, and storm water systems. In this interview, Mr. Yeoman tells Municipal Water Leader how the company came to be, the advantage of its products for combating plastic contamination, and how it has expanded from…
Amber Ponce: Raising the Roof for Water and People at LiveRoof
LiveRoof ’s products allow companies and cities to make better use of rooftops in ways that reduce storm water runoff, improve environmental conservation, and enhance quality of life. The company is also managed in a way that encourages, and in fact requires, innovation among its employees, partners, and customers. In this interview, Amber Ponce, LiveRoof ’s business development manager, tells Municipal Water Leader about how the company’s green rooftop projects are revolutionizing the management of infrastructure and storm water runoff.
John Verduin: Bringing People and Ideas Together at Anchor QEA
Working with varied stakeholders on complicated issues to produce innovative, effective solutions is a considerable challenge, particularly for water-related issues. But John Verduin has made a career of doing exactly that, particularly in his current role as managing partner of Anchor QEA, a company that uses innovation and collaboration to solve complex environmental and water issues ranging from irrigation and municipal water supply to storm water, wastewater, and green infrastructure. In this article, Mr. Verduin tells Municipal Water Leader about Anchor QEA’s origins, the company’s approach to the challenging projects it undertakes, and how it has created a culture of innovation and collaboration both internally and externally.
Volume 8 Issue 6 June 2021 John Verduin: Bringing People and Ideas Together at Anchor QEA
By Kris Polly Storm water management is a constant concern for municipalities. Sudden influxes of water, often bringing pollutants of various sorts, can overflow systems, challenge treatment infrastructure, and affect the environment. Luckily, municipal water professionals are working to design ever better systems, develop innovative mitigation technologies, and find funds to improve infrastructure. Our cover interview this month is with John Verduin of Anchor QEA, a firm that specializes in challenging projects in the environmental science, engineering, planning, and restoration fields. AnchorQEA incorporates environmental concerns into its work from planning and design through construction and monitoring. Amber Ponce of LiveRoof tells us about how her company’s green roofs mitigate storm…
Sergie Albino of ecoSPEARS: Fighting Environmental Contamination With Advanced Technology
Sergie Albino’s career has truly gone to the moon and back. After helping NASA with its effort to search for water on the moon, he wanted to find ways to improve the water on Earth. With that in mind, he started ecoSPEARS, a company that has developed technologies to clean up environmental contamination. These include the use of ultraviolet (UV) technology to clean contaminated water and alcohol and absorbing spikes to treat soil and sediments. In this interview, Sergie Albino tells Municipal Water Leader about ecoSPEARS’ cost-effective treatment solutions and the importance of a holistic approach to environmental protection.
Melanie McClare: Working Smarter With Wastewater at Swirltex
Innovation can take many forms, and these can include making existing technology work better and more efficiently. Swirltex is committed to doing exactly that. The company produces custom, modular wastewater treatment systems that use buoyancy-based membrane filtration to more efficiently separate solids and liquids, producing higher-quality effluent and better production rates while requiring less energy. Swirltex’s technology is designed to augment existing wastewater infrastructure, eliminating the need for expensive capital upgrades. In this interview, Swirltex CEO Melanie McClare tells Municipal Water Leader about how Swirltex is driving innovation across the wastewater management sector.
Bryan Eagle of Glanris: Turning Ag Waste into Sustainable Filtration Media
Reducing and reusing waste material are important conservation issues for both the water and the food industries. Bryan Eagle cofounded Glanris to develop a new technology that employs discarded rice hulls to create a filter material that can remove metals and organic material from water systems, all without any plastic or artificial components and with the added benefit of sequestering carbon after its use. In this interview, Mr. Eagle tells Municipal Water Leader how the Glanris technology works, its advantages over other filter materials, and the crucial role it can play in addressing climate change.
