Water groups want more money, fewer mandates
November 19, 2008

The American Water Works Association, along with three other water-industry groups, have issued a joint "National Agenda for Drinking Water" to the President-elect for his consideration before the new legislative year begins in January. In it, the groups ask for $1 billion in "economic-stimulus" funding for new water-infrastructure projects, $2 billion for SRF loans and USDA rural-water loans and grants, and lots of new efforts to reduce non-point-source pollution of the nation's water supplies. They also ask for a freeze on new water-related regulations that are mandated by Congress, rather than by the EPA, and argue that several polices currently in force or under review as part of homeland-security guidelines be put on hold. In particular, they are concerned about new rules on chemical storage and safety as well as the possibility that they'll be forced to answer to both the EPA and the Department of Homeland Security at the same time.

We are capable of helping water and wastewater-treatment plants across a broad spectrum of needs, from pumps to sensors for ensuring water safety. Please feel free to contact us with your questions.


Shipping chlorine is about to get more expensive
November 18, 2008

The TSA is planning to impose costly new measures to ensure the safety and security of chlorine gas shipments traveling by rail. The leading concern is that unguarded chlorine gas can be (and has been) used as a weapon of terrorism, and that there has never been a sufficiently stringent set of controls imposed on the transportation of chlorine gas across the country. The expense of dealing with the new shipment rules may encourage some facilities to shift to the use of safer chlorine tablets for disinfection purposes. Tablet chlorine poses far less risk to safety than its gas or liquid forms.


LA wildfires force 40,000 people to evacuate
November 17, 2008

The Triangle Complex fire has forced 40,000 people from their homes and burned 29,000 acres. There's some debate now over whether these are the worst fires in LA in a half-century.

We offer portable firefighting pumps for quick shipment anywhere in the lower 48 states, as well as PTO-driven fire pumps commonly used by firefighting teams. Please feel free to contact us with your questions.


Modern technology begets modern threats
November 14, 2008

As SCADA and networked systems become more common inside critical facilities like water and wastewater treatment plants, the need to ensure the security of those electronic control systems becomes even more important. Variable-frequency drives (VFDs) and programmable-logic controllers (PLCs) are frequently used in our lift stations and booster pump stations, and those are just two examples of high-tech pieces of the modern infrastructure puzzle. Attacks are not a commonplace occurrence yet, but disgruntled parties have used radio controls to cause pump station failures.


A short history of the quality of the Cedar River
November 13, 2008

The summer floods which did significant damage to much of Iowa, including many water and wastewater treatment plants, has brought renewed attention to the quality of the water in the Cedar River which runs through the eastern part of the state. Even as recently as the 1960s, the river was in bad ecological shape, but with improvements in wastewater treatment (particularly in the 1970s), the health of the river improved. While the effects of the summer flooding will probably continue to raise bacteria levels for a while, in the long term, lots of attention will be needed to the matter of non-point-source pollution, which is harder to control than what flows into the sanitary sewers.


"You just can't build something and never pay attention to it again"
November 12, 2008

There is a lot of expectation building that the government will initiate another economic-stimulus plan soon, which may include funding for infrastructure improvements in the water and wastewater sectors. Many projects funded with Federal money in the 1970s have reached or exceeded their expected useful lives, and need significant replacements and upgrades.


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