If one of the following scenarios describes something that has gone on with your business in the past year, you need to attend this year’s National Association of Wastewater Technicians Waste Treatment Symposium.

• You have had a long-standing relationship with the local municipal sewage treatment authority to accept septage as long as you utilize one of the designated dump sites at an agreed upon price factored into your business plan. However, now the price is going up due to necessary upgrades at the sewage plant.

• Your business has grown faster than you anticipated and you are buying additional trucks and hiring technicians to keep up. When you look at your disposal costs, the number has gone beyond $300,000 per year. You see that if you can reduce those costs your business can expand further.

• You’ve received notice that because of growth in your area, the local treatment plant is near capacity and officials put you on notice that in the near future you won’t be allowed to deliver septage to the plant but will have to take it to a different facility that adds 50 miles round trip to each of your trucks. The cost of fuel will put a huge dent in your profits.

• You received word that two farmers who have been accepting your septage are selling out to developers, resulting in the loss of your land-application sites.

All of these scenarios are real situations that the NAWT board of directors has heard over the past few months. That is why NAWT continues to offer its popular Waste Treatment Symposium: to provide an opportunity for you to spend two days devoted to determining if you should invest in a facility of your own and what it takes to get you there.

The Symposium is the only place where you can meet 150 business owners grappling with the same unique problems and situations you’re encountering. It is the opportunity to see state of the art dewatering technologies in live operation and talk with people who have used and are using these to process septage. You will leave the Symposium with a clear picture of what you need to do to establish a facility.

For two days you will meet with experienced, knowledgeable people and discuss how to plan a facility, evaluate your neighborhood and resources, approach financial institutions and look at the operation of the facility itself, from intake and screening and use of dewatering technology, to how to deal with polymers and what to do with the final products. At this symposium you will develop contacts and network with people from across the country that you can draw on for assistance as you move forward to develop your own facility.

For those currently operating facilities, there is the opportunity to see the different dewatering options in operation. There is a special track to explore other potential avenues for facilities, including anaerobic digestion for energy, composting, growing grass for energy and other options.

NAWT is hosting the 6th Waste Treatment Symposium Sept. 25-26 at James Penner’s AA Septic Service & Rotary Sewer Cleaning, Inc., dewatering facility in Clayton, Ind., near Indianapolis.

Classroom discussions will be held at nearby Camp Camby covering topics mentioned above, as well as what the regulatory people are going to need and how to select an engineer when the time comes to put the plan on paper. You will learn from those who are already running successful facilities. You will learn about treatment processes, review case histories, understand the economics of unit processes and tour an operating facility.

Additionally, equipment manufacturers and suppliers will be on hand so you can weigh the pros and cons of different technologies and see equipment operate with real septage. There will be extended coffee breaks, lunches, exhibits, and an evening reception that will provide the opportunity to network with others in similar situations and to get to know manufacturers and suppliers. You cannot afford to miss this!

For more details, go to www.nawt.org or call 800/236-6298.