FRESH LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that NAWT received to improve and implement its vacuum truck training course expired in February. We made a lot of headway toward achieving those goals, primarily by working with state associations. Most recently, the Florida Onsite Wastewater Association, or FOWA, presented the course twice in February and has funding to offer it a third time. Florida has no mandate requiring vacuum truck training, so FOWA worked with licensing authorities to qualify the course for continuing education credits. The Ohio Onsite Wastewater Association also gave the course at its annual conference this year.
NAWT held 18 vacuum truck training sessions and certified 300 operators during the last two years. It also qualified 10 individuals to teach the course. Some are pumpers running six to 10 vacuum trucks. They became trainers so their drivers would all be NAWT-certified operators.
NAWT has always believed that its training should come to a location near you. It has to be convenient and affordable. To that end, we are working on duplicating the National Environmental Health Association Inc. e-Learning online training program. NAWT courses lend themselves well to this Web-based format, which would include streaming video of all field components.
Here’s how it works: Applicants would pay a fee to receive our printed instruction manual and access the e-course, then complete the work within a given time frame. Chapters from the manual end with review questions. Anyone with further questions can e-mail a NAWT instructor and receive a prompt response. A LaserGrade Test Center — each state has one or more — would administer the final exam.
Besides the convenience this solution offers, the registration fee would be about 50 percent less than a classroom course. Add travel expenses to the equation and the savings are even greater. It’s a fantastic deal, and answers the many requests NAWT receives to post the courses online.
WASTE TREATMENT SYMPOSIUM
NAWT is working with the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference to make this year’s Waste Treatment Symposium extra special. Both events are in Orlando, Fla. The symposium dates are Oct. 9-10 (Friday and Saturday), and WEFTEC follows on Oct. 11-14. For starters, registering for our symposium will include free admission to the WEFTEC exhibit hall Sunday afternoon (www.weftec.org). Last year, 1,111 venders participated, many with information on waste treatment. Some WEFTEC vendors and participants will have the opportunity to attend our symposium, too.
Friday’s agenda covers septage treatment and business planning. We’re still locking down speakers, so please be patient. Saturday morning’s classroom sessions focus on processing grease trap waste. Our topics are:
Trap Grease: Transforming a Liability to an Asset, Emily Landsburg, CEO, Philadelphia Fry-o-Diesel Inc., Philadelphia, Pa.
Landsburg will talk about the challenges of processing sewer, grease trap and other brown greases into a biodiesel fuel that meets ASTM-D6751 (national quality standard) and lay out specific steps to implement a successful project.
Evolution of Transported Liquid Waste to Beneficial Use with Pre-Treatment Processes; Solving Regional Needs of Haulers and Wastewater Treatment Plants, Therese Wheaton, Crystal Environmental, Springboro, Pa.
This presentation discusses how the inability of publically owned treatment plants to meet the needs of waste haulers fueled the development of privately owned treatment works, and how recently built facilities can process greater volumes of waste with a smaller impact on them.
Biomethane Production and Utilization in North America, Dr. Dave Parry, P.E., BCEE, CDM, Bellevue, Wash.
Parry’s talk explains how to increase biogas production in an economical, environmentally feasible, socially acceptable manner that is operator friendly. He will use authentic operating examples to present options.
Orange County (Fla.) Grease Management and Industrial User Discharge Permits, Susanna Littell, Orange County Utilities Services Coordinator, Orlando, Fla.
Orange County has an aggressive and successful grease trap management program partly because of its relationship with Select Processing of Orlando. Littell will discuss how that facility pretreats wastes before discharge into the municipal collection system and how the county’s pretreatment program developed.
Case History of Select Processing of Orlando, Steven Macchio, ClearFlo Technologies Inc., North Lindenhurst, N.Y.
Macchio, owner of Select Processing of Orlando, will talk about how the facility evolved from screening and lime stabilization to dewatering and discharging effluent into the Orange County municipal collection system.
Following a Q & A session and lunch, attendees will be bused to Select Processing for a tour. The facility, an industrial user, is permitted to process 188,000 gpd of septage, grease trap waste, portable restroom wastes, and sewage sludge. It handles 30,000 to 40,000 gallons of grease trap waste a day. Class B biosolids are applied on agricultural land. Using genuine septage and grease trap waste, vendors will demonstrate operating, screening, and dewatering equipment, polymer applications, and other peripheral devices.
One interesting fact about the city of Orlando and surrounding Orange County is that they require grease traps to be pumped every 90 days. The city alone has some 10,000 restaurants, enabling many haulers to do nothing but pump grease traps.
Attendance at the symposium is limited to the number that the field site can safely accommodate, so register early by downloading the form at www.nawt.org.
