"Bioswales in the Bayou" was a smashing success, and would not have been possi-ble without the help of our hard-working volunteers and our generous sponsors. A huge thank you goes out to the following groups for their monetary support: Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services, Black & Veatch, Brown and Caldwell, CDM, DC Water

& Sewer Services, Duperon Corporation, Fluid Control Specialities Inc., Hach Com-pany, HDR Engineering Inc., Stantec Consulting Service Inc., Veolia Water North America, Weston Solutions Inc., and Westfall Manufacturing Co. Thank you also to the organizations who donated both time and materials to the day's en-deavors: Archer Western Alberici, Baker Transporta-tion and Logistics, Bayou Rebirth, Bottom Line Equip-ment, Brentwood Industries,

By Katie Schaffnit

October 2, 2010 marked the completion of the third annual WEF Service Project. This year, organized by the SYPC, more than 75 volun-teers came together to build a bioswale in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, an area hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The project, titled "Bioswales in the Bayou", worked with local New Or-leans landscape architecture firm FutureProof to design and build a 125 foot by 30 foot bioswale in the center of a green housing community that is under development by the national environmental non-profit, Global Green. It will direct stormwater away from the new homes, retain the water and remove pollu-tion while helping runoff seep into the groundwater.

For the first time, this year's WEF Service Project was ac-

companied by a water carni-val. Held on a nearby street, the carnival featured 14 booths manned by engineer-ing, government, and envi-ronmental groups, aimed at educating the public about water issues. The carnival drew nearly 200 visitors, who learned what it might be like to have to collect and carry all your drinking water in a bucket, watched demon-strations of erosion due of stormwater runoff, and got to have their pictures taken with Ricky the Raindrop who came all the way from the Municipal Water District of Orange County for the event.

The carnival and the ser-vice project were extremely well received by the commu-nity and even attracted the attention of the local media, resulting in an evening fea-ture on the local news.

BIOSWALES IN THE BAYOU In This Issue

�� SYPC Service Project

�� WEFTEC 2010

YP Reception

Student Design Competition

Career Fair

Process Automation and Control Workshop �� MA Updates

�� Getting Involved:

Students and YPs

�� Calendar of Events

The completed bioswale will retain storm water allowing it to percolate slowly back into the groundwater.

SYPC volunteers hard at work in New Orleans

YP Connections

SYPC volunteers and the completed bioswale.

City of New Orleans Police De-partment, Cleveland Tubing, Delta Mining, EcoUrban LLC, Future Proof, Global Green, Greater Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Groundwork New Orleans, Hike for KaTREEna, Jenkins Farm and Nursery, Lower 9th Ward Vil-lage, LSU Ag Center, New Or-leans Sewerage and Water Board, St. Pius X Catholic School, Storm Hunter Hauling, World Water Works, and WEF.

Planning is already underway for next year's service project (WEFTEC.11 in Los Angeles). If you are interested in getting in-volved, please contact Haley Fal-coner at haley.falconer@hdrinc.com.

By Sarah Hubbell

On Monday night at WEFTEC in New Orleans, the Students and Young Pro-fessionals Committee hosted the sixth annual YP Reception at the incredible House of Blues. About 250 young engi-neers and industry leaders mixed and mingled in the

indoor/outdoor Voodoo Gar-den area of the venue, enjoy-ing delicious food and bever-ages. Several sponsoring com-panies provided some great door prizes, including a Flip video camera and an Amazon Kindle. Committee chair, Bob Wimmer, emceed a dance competition and a rous-

ing game of musical chairs. Sponsors of the event in-cluded CDM, Greeley and Hansen, Hach, Marsh McBir-ney, AECOM, EDI and WWEMA. Our generous sponsors make this event pos-sible at no charge to atten-dees, so make plans now to attend this event in Los Ange-les at WEFTEC 2011!

Pirnie, and the Peace Corps. Over 200 students attended the Career Fair. Stu-dents were encouraged to submit their resumes in advance of WEFTEC, and WEF received a record number of re-sumes for the Career Fair. Mr. Christo-pher Korab, Vice President of Human Resources for Aqua-Aerobic Systems, Inc. assisted students with last minute preparations and answered questions regarding career search strategies. WEF also added an opportunity for students

By Anil Tangirala

The WEFTEC.10 Career Fair was held at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center on October 12, 2010, from 1 to 4 PM. This year the following compa-nies participated in the Career Fair: AECOM, Black and Veatch, Brown and Caldwell, CDM, CH2MHILL, Carollo Engineers, Environmental Dynamics, Freese and Nichols, Greeley and Han-sen, Hazen and Sawyer, HDR, Malcolm

and young professionals to learn more about WEF Technical Committees. Six committees had booths at the Career Fair to speak with young professionals on opportunities to get more involved in WEF through committee work.

YP RECEPTION

CAREER FAIR

PROCESS AUTOMATION AND CONTROL WORKSHOP workshop provided design personnel, operational staff and utility managers with practical fundamental knowl-edge of control systems, ex-plaining what automation systems consist of, why auto-mation is beneficial, and how automation systems are im-plemented. The workshop was well received by the at-

tendees. The workshop was chaired by a YP (Erici Dodds) and included three YP speak-ers (Steve Kerr, Matthew Schultz, and Eric Dodds).

By Eric Dodds

The S&YP co-sponsored the ‘Process Automation and Control Fundamen-tals: SCADA 101’ workshop at WEFTEC’10 with the Automation and Information Technology (AIT) Committee and the Municipal Wastewa-ter Treatment Design (MWTD) Committee. The

WEFTEC

A YEAR IN REVIEW

PAGE 2 VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1

YPs Jennifer Shore, Haley Falconer, and Michelle

Hatcher at WEFTEC.10’s YP Reception.

By Michelle Hatcher

WEFTEC 2011 hosted 11 teams for the Student Design Competition for the wastewa-ter and environmental compe-titions. Teams from across the country participated and in-cluded schools from the Uni-versity of Florida, Southern Methodist University, Ryerson University, University of Illi-nois – Urbana Champaign, Colorado State University, University of North Dakota, University of South Florida, University of Waterloo, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, and Virginia Tech. In all, there were seven teams that partici-pated in the traditional waste-water competition, and four teams that participated in the newer environmental competi-tion. The traditional wastewa-ter competition includes topics ranging from hydraulic capacity design, upgrades to existing systems, biosolids handling, etc. The newer, more con-temporary environmental de-sign competition includes top-

ics ranging from sustainability, water reuse, wetland construc-tion, etc. Teams prepare a 20-page submittal prior to WEFTEC and 20-minute pres-entation for WEFTEC. Both aspects of the competition are judged and a final score is de-termined, with the winner announced at WEFTEC. This year’s winners included South-ern Methodist University for their presentation titled “Settler’s Village Wastewater Treatment Plant Expan-sion”. The University of Flor-ida received first place in the environmental competition with their presentation titled “Green Infrastructure Design for Pollutant Control from Transport Systems Crossing Land-Water Interfaces – A Bridge too Far?”. Both first place teams received $2,500 in cash prizes as provided by our generous sponsors. Sponsors included Black & Veatch, CDM, Greeley & Hansen, and Parsons Brinkerhoff. For addi-tional team information, please see the SYPC webpage on www.wef.org, or contact Lau-

ren Zuravnsky at lzuravnsky@greeley-hansen.com. The 2011 Stu-dent Design Competition Guidelines will be posted shortly, so mark your chance to become a part of this excit-ing competition!

STUDENT DESIGN COMPETITION

WEFTEC

CONTINUED

PAGE 3 VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1

Southern Methodist University won first place in the wastewa-

ter division.

University of Florida won first place in the environmental divi-

sion.

By Lou Storino, IWEA Stu-dent Chapter Chair

The Illinois Water Environ-ment Association’s Student Chapter and Young Profes-sionals Committee hosted a fall rain garden maintenance day on Saturday October 16, 2010, at Pulaski Park in Chi-cago. The rain garden was installed as the first service project of the WEF Students and Young Professionals Committee during WEFTEC

efforts at the Dry Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant; Patrick Moore, with Barge Waggoner Sumner & Can-non, presented on the recov-ery efforts at the Biosolids Facility; and Roy Denney, with Metro Water Services, took everyone on a tour of the Biosolids Facility. A big thanks goes out to all the speakers and to Southern Sales for sponsoring the lunch. The Louisville YPs hosted a lunch and learn on December

The Nashville YPs got together on November 9th for a lunch and learn at Metro Water Services for a presen-tation on the Flood Recovery Efforts of three facili-ties. Gresham, Smith & Part-ners presented on the recov-ery efforts at the K.R. Har-rington Water Treatment Plant that was completely flooded by the May event. Heather Crabtree, Ken Cox, and Ron Taylor, all with Metro Water Services, presented on the recovery

17th at Louisville MSD. Chuck Anderson, with Strand Associates, presented “Picking a Pump in 30 min-utes or Less”. A big thanks goes out to Mr. Anderson and to Ray Wilkey, with ITT Flygt, for sponsoring the lunch. The Lexington YPs got together for a social on December 14th at Marik-kas. The Knoxville YPs hosted a lunch and learn on December 14th at Cannon and Cannon, Inc. Jennifer Bald-win, with CH2M Hill,

PULASKI PARK RAIN GARDEN UPDATE

YPS IN TN & KY LEARN ABOUT FLOOD RECOVERY EFFORTS

VIRGINIA WATER ENVIRONMENT ASSOCIATION cheered on the Old Dominion University (ODU) Monarchs Men's Basketball team as they took on the Richmond Spi-ders and rallied from eight points down to beat Rich-mond 77-70. The attendees enjoyed pizza and wings from club level while watching the exciting game.

Some of Hampton Roads finest YPs supporting ODU.

By Stephanie Kunze

ASCE, the Eastern Virginia Regional Activities Commit-tee (EVRAC), and the Vir-ginia Water Environment Association (VWEA) hosted a social event for young profes-sionals on Wednesday, De-cember 1, 2010. Participants

MA UPDATES

PAGE 4 VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1

2008. Special thanks to Kendra Sveum for coordinat-ing the event and Metropoli-tan Water Reclamation Dis-trict of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) for lending their tools.

Volunteers adding a top dress-ing of mulch to the garden after weeding and planting

Volunteers from MWH Americas, Donohue and Asso-ciates, AECOM, and MWRDGC along with some of their friends and families

presented “Drinking Water Regulations – what are Stage 2 DBPR & Long Term 2 EWSTR”. A big thanks goes out to Ms. Baldwin and to CH2MHill for sponsoring the lunch.

Rising flood waters

By Kendra Sveum

The Technical Coordination sub-committee was estab-lished to focus on increasing new member engagement and filling volunteer needs, both within and outside the S&YPC. If you are a YP that is interested in becoming more involved, either nationally or locally, but needs some help getting started, please contact me at ksveum@donohue-associates.com, and we can find something that fits your interests.

Right now we are looking for YPs to fill specific volun-teer requests with the fol-lowing WEF Committees:

�� Residual and Biosolids

�� Membership

�� Municipal Wastewater Treatment Design

Last year the sub-committee developed a mentor system to establish a guide for each new member as they learn how to navigate the S&YPC and WEF. Each new mem-ber was asked to fill out a survey that gathered infor-

mation on their areas of inter-est and goals. The survey pro-vided background information on the individuals to help in selecting a mentor as well as making suggestions to poten-tial activities that may be of interest with them. Currently we are looking for more peo-ple to serve as mentors to our new incoming members. If you are interested in getting to know a new YP in your area and helping them find a place within WEF and your MA, please let me know.

ENGAGING OUR MEMBERS: THE TECHNICAL COORDINATINON SUB-COMMITTEE

THE WASTEWATER CHALLENGE system by applying traditional wastewater treatment princi-ples learned in the classroom in an extraordinary situation that requires true and innova-tive “outside-the-box” think-ing.

WHERE: Sacramento, Cali-fornia, at the 2011 WEF Re-siduals and Biosolids Confer-ence

WHEN: May 22-25, 2011

Questions: Post ques-tions to WEFWastewater-Challenge@wef.org

To be eligible to compete, your team must submit a De-sign Report to the WEF

Wastewater Challenge Com-mittee. There is a limit of one team per student chap-ter. The top 12 teams will be selected to compete.

The deadline to submit reports for entry is April

1, 2011, at 5 PM PST.

All team members must be a registered WEF member. For more information on how to join please visit:

http://www.wef.org/Members/

page_joinwef.aspx?id=261&ekmensel=c57dfa7b

_59_0_261_9

(click on “Student Package”).

By Dianne Crilley

The Water Environment Fed-eration would like to invite a team from your school to participate in the 2011 WEF Wastewater Challenge (WWC). This hands-on chal-lenging and fun national com-petition requires teams of students to treat agricultural runoff from a biosolids com-post facility in order to pro-tect a wetland ecosystem, using an assortment of house-hold products. The challenge is an opportunity for students across the nation to work collaboratively, problem solve, and design an emer-gency wastewater treatment

GETTING INVOLVED: STUDENTS

AND YPS

PAGE 5 VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1

The Problem:

A 200 acre Biosolids Compost Facility that has 100,000 cubic yards of composting, curing, and finished compost on site sits next to an earthen levee and just up-gradient from a sensitive wetland type ecosystem. The levee is expected to breach and for sev-eral hours 5,000 CFS of agricul-tural runoff and snow melt will run through the site with the normal runoff controls getting overloaded. It is expected that most of this now further con-taminated water will reach the site fence line and if not stopped or successfully treated will dev-astate the wetland. The Army Corps of Engineers will be re-pairing the breach within 12 hours and therefore the solution to the problem should be consid-ered temporary. The natural slope of the facility would chan-nel the flow to an area of no more than 100 yards wide at the fence line.…...

To learn about your team’s task, visit:

http://www.wef.org/PublicInformation/page.aspx?

id=136

Calendar of events

February 9: Part Two of Perspectives on Collection Systems Rehabili-tation and Replacement Webcast Series: Manhole Rehabilitation

February 8-11:Utility Management Conference

March 17-19: New Jersey WEA, Atlantic City, NJ

April 1: April Fool’s Day

April 10-12: Disinfection 2011, Cincinnati, OH

April 14: Young Professionals Summit, Louisville, KY

April 14-16: Tennessee-Kentucky WEA, Louisville, KY

April 28-29: Iowa WEA, Davenport, IA

May 19-20: British Columbia WWA, Vancouver, BC

May 22-25: Residuals and Biosolids 2011, Sacramento, CA

June 12-15: Collection Systems 2011, Raleigh, NC

June 28-29: EWA/WEF/JSWA Cutting-Edge Technologies and Best Practices on Sewerage, Tokyo, Japan

July 31-August 3: Energy and Water 2011, Chicago, IL

October 15-19: WEFTEC 2011, Los Angeles, CA

Co-Chairs: Michelle Hatcher: hatchermm@cdm.com Katie Schaffnit: schaffnit_ks@hotmail.com

Contributors: Dianne Crilley

Eric Dodds Sarah Hubbell

Stephanie Kunze Lou Storino

Kendra Sveum Anil Tangirala

YP CONNECTIONS

W E’ RE ON THE W EB W WW. WEF. ORG