Dan Theobald-WastewaterDan The Wastewater Wizard
By ESDLT:
A gathering of Online Published Quotes given
by Daniel L. Theobald as
9/25/2013 & Subsequent
Online Web Site with Link Follows:
”Reducing Chemicals in Water Can Be Green and Profitable”
“Simple Steps Can Help Industries Conserve Water”
”Challenges with Water”
”EPA is moving very slowly”
”MOP is an acronym for Manual Of Practice”
”Water Wasted by Industrial Manufacturing Facilities”
”Sustainability of Water”
”Optimize Operating Procedures”
”Emerging Containments”
”Optimize Current Procedures without New Technologies”
”You improve the quality of treatment and you reduce the cost of the operation.”
“Conserving water”
“Recognize The Need to Conserve”
“Cost of Water has Sky-Rocketed”
“Unique Wastewater Treatment needs for Industrial Processes”
Online Web Link to complete Quote Below:
”Reducing Chemicals in Water Can Be Green and Profitable”
“Most wastewater treatment plants, whether they are operated by industry or municipalities, use a significant amount of chemicals.
In some cases, the chemicals are used to neutralize the acid conditions or the high alkaline conditions of the water. Other plants require chemicals that remove the impurities or pollutants in the wastewater.
Many plants employ minimal controls and suffer from inefficient chemical usage. Through proper analysis, the use of chemicals can often be reduced as much as 10 to 50 percent.
These simple testing procedures contribute to clean water and soil while achieving substantial cost savings, as well.
The bottom line: This is one of the many ways we can cost-efficiently save our environment.”
“Simple Steps Can Help Industries Conserve Water”
“It’s widely known that the world is in a water crisis that is now being exacerbated by the warming trends we all read about.
What’s less known is the enormous amount of water wasted by industrial plants simply because they have failed to keep up with the solutions available to Industry.
For example, water used in cooling systems can be recirculated rather than discharged, chemicals can be removed from water turning it from waste to fresh water again, and hoses can be adjusted to pour less water while still achieving their purposes.
In the industrial world, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of gallons of water often wasted daily in just one plant alone.
In many instances, the public is ahead of industry in water conservation.
Conserving water can also be a step toward significant savings for corporations.”
”Challenges with Water”
“There are Challenges with Water supply, with water quality, and also issues pertaining to global warming.
As far as the water quality goes, actually one out of three of the world population lacks basic sanitation for water needs, so that puts the water quality in perspective,
I think. As far as water supply goes, as you know, our underground aquifers are supplies for many communities for their potable water or their drinking water supply.
Of course, underground aquifers are affected by overuse and by pollution growth. They are affected negatively by it, so I think that’s a major concern.
Also, global warming is affecting the rising of oceans and the submerging of coastal cities.
I think those are in my view probably the three most serious challenges facing the countries around the world as far as water go.”
”EPA is moving very slowly”
“I agree that the EPA is moving very slowly.
I think part of that is because the agency is a reactionary agency.
It’s not necessarily a proactive one, it is a reactive one.
They are reacting to the conditions that are present. I think that they are also somewhat muted by other issues.
There might be some people in the government that are leaning one way or leaning another way.
There may be some lobbying from industry that’s kind of slowing things down. I mean I am not advocating this and or agreeing with it, but I think that the fact that they’re reactionary and there might be some other forces at work there could be part of this slowing process.”
”MOP is an acronym for Manual Of Practice”
“The Water Environment Federation has several technical manuals, and the MOP is an acronym for Manual Of Practice.
MOP 29 is the manual published for Engineers as a resource to design biological nutrient removal facilities for Operating Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants.
This MOP-29 was planned for update intended for Operators.
I was selected by Water Environment Federation to volunteer as a participant developing this Manual.
There are approximately 17 chapters, each having a primary author.
I am the primary author of chapter two of this publication.
This Manual was renamed as MOP-37 and published August 2013.”
”Water Wasted by Industrial Manufacturing Facilities”
“I prefer to focus on Water Wasted by Industrial Manufacturing Facilities.
I think a lot of it is just the profit and loss element.
A company manufactures a product which requires a certain amount of water, and it might be less than a hundred thousand gallons a day.
Then they make their product and treat their wastewater.
They look for the most expedient way to dispose of it, and it just happens to be discharging it as a pre-treated wastewater into a sewer authority.
To reuse water requires capital that they would rather not spend if it’s cheaper for them just to dispose of it.
I think that’s why we don’t reuse that much.
Certainly if there’s an incentive to conserve, then they’ll be interested in doing that.
It might be more cost effective to figure out a way to reuse it than it would be not to.
If that’s the case, then they will probably be forced to do it in the most cost-efficient way.
To really purify the water is very cost intensive.
To capture rainwater and to purify it and reuse it is probably also going to be very cost intensive.
One of the things that could be considered is multiple industries banding together and discharging their water in larger volumes, and then purify it and send it back for the participating industries to reuse it.
I think that’s a potential opportunity for a lot of companies.
For example, you could have an industrial park. There might be five or 10 industrial manufacturing facilities at this park.
They all may be buying and discharging 50,000 gallons of water a day or less.
It becomes cost prohibitive to try and purify that water because each company would be on an individual company basis — they would be having the start-up cost and the initial capital cost to purify the water.
If all of them band together and it took their waste from their facility, now you’re at, say there are 10 companies at 50,000 gallons a day — now you are looking at 500,000.
Now the economies of scale should be kicking in, and all 10 of these companies could be banding together in a project to develop a water purification system and then return that water for reuse back at all of those industries.
I think if we start looking at that, we’ve got an opportunity to get more companies involved, because then you can potentially have less capital expenditure for each company.
It becomes cost effective and then everyone can benefit.”
”Sustainability of Water”
“When it comes to Sustainability of Water, reusing water and purifying water, I think there is a lot of room for progress and improvement.
Certainly some companies are doing more than others.
For example, a lot of times the incentive is the requirements of your product.
So if you have to have, say, a food-grade product — whether you are in the pharmaceutical industry or whether you are in the food industry — you have a built-in incentive to try to purify water, because if you purify the water it is probably going to be allowed for reuse within your facility and then you just become a good citizen and you become a good environmental steward, and you can go a long way with it.
For example, there is an organization called The Water Reuse Association.
They have an annual award ceremony, and I think some food industries actually are recent recipients of that award.
That’s the kind of thing that I think can kind of take hold in other communities and other industries, in other organizations.”
”Optimize Operating Procedures”
“So I primarily Optimize Operating Procedures, I train the operators to improve their skills and look at instrumentation and equipment to streamline the operation and improve the quality of their treatment at the same time.”
”Emerging Containments”
“The problem of new Emerging Containments is evolving and increasing in frequency.
I think first if you define emerging contaminant you see that hazardous materials are mixtures that are threatening to human health.
Examples of that are certain pharmaceutical and personal care products which actually have through the development of new products; they have the presence of some of these emerging contaminants.
Also there are man-made chemicals that are manufactured to actually resist heat, resist oil, and resist stains to your products so it becomes very often that these products are being manufactured and that actually have the emerging contaminants in it.
Now, the course of action, if you will allow me, there is very little that has been done up to this point.
Some of these contaminants are in low concentration and some of these contaminants are increasing in concentration.
Right now it is in a research stage, and the EPA has really not done any work establishing the regulation, and once they do, then we will be able to respond.
But there is very little done, but the research is showing that it’s occurring more and more.”
”Optimize Current Procedures without New Technologies”
“There are so many inefficiencies that you can just optimize the current procedures without introducing new technologies to meet tightening regulations as well as save on cost.”
”You improve the quality of treatment and you reduce the cost of the operation.”
“Typically wherever you’ve got cost inefficiencies or operating inefficiencies, you’ve also got treatment results inefficiencies, and when you identify those inefficiencies, the improvements go hand in hand.