Conference Papers

Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) implemented a watershed-wide Disadvantaged Community Involvement (DCI) Program between 2007 and 2021 to determine the strengths and needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underrepresented communities in the watershed (https://sawpa.org/owow/dci-program/). This program, conducted under SAWPA's One Water One Watershed Program (https://sawpa.org/owow/), included a wide array of engagement and education activities intended to uncover and share the needs and capacities within the water agencies and communities. It was built upon the strong foundation of knowledge and outreach developed throughout earlier integrated regional water management planning efforts and encompassed three key program elements. Program Element 1 of the DCI program entailed surveying the strengths and needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underserved communities in the watershed. This included a series of workshops conducted by SAWPA to engage with representatives from these communities to expand the reach of OWOW. Through these workshops representatives of these communities were provided the opportunity to contribute, through conversation and deliberation, to the planning, and research. A key component of this DCI program element entailed the development of a novel ethnographic approach to investigate and document the strengths and needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underserved communities in the Santa Ana River Watershed. This ethnographic approach, unlike a traditional strength and needs assessment approach, was based upon consultation with the greater community throughout the process and recognized community members as local environmental experts. Through this approach SAWPA's program partners used network sampling methods to engage five social groups: elected officials, water agencies, mutual water companies, Native American communities, and other diverse local communities. These efforts combined in a total of 53 listening sessions, totaling 82 hours of conversation with members of the community speaking about their watershed experiences. The data collected during these listening sessions were then analyzed to identify key discussion themes and documented in the 'Santa Ana River Watershed Community Water Experiences and Ethnographic Strengths and Needs Assessment Report' (https://sawpa.org/owow/dci-program/strengths-and-needs/). Program Element 2 encompassed a broad number of engagement and education activities to share the information gathered through the strengths and needs assessment with local the water agencies and communities highlighted by the following: -Homelessness and water convening events to reveal synergies and develop new partnerships between those seeking to manage homelessness in the watershed and those engaged with water management. -Tribal consultation with California Native American Tribes within the Santa Ana River Watershed, as well as those with historical and/or cultural ties to the Watershed. -Trust the Tap campaign to assist in the development and implement a multilingual community outreach campaign to share the value and safety of tap water with communities in the watershed. -Translation services for in‐person meetings and written material translation services on activities related to community engagement for water management. -Engagement best practices publication looking at engagement of DACs about water management, with case studies from around the state. - Community water education to provide community members opportunities to learn about the water management process and engage with local water managers in the watershed. - Water agency training for water agencies staff in the watershed and statewide summit to share the information. - Local elected leader training to share the findings of the DCI program, basic information on water management topics, and best practices for helping the communities to interact with water planning activities. Program Element 3 focused on project development building upon what was learned through the strengths and needs assessment to identify projects and programs that address the needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underserved communities in the watershed. SAWPA, working in coordination with a Technical Assistance Committee composed of the DCI non-profit partners, were tasked to develop evaluation criteria for projects and programs to receive technical assistance funding, conduct a rating, ranking and scoring of the potential projects, plans and programs and allocate $2.9 M in available technical assistance funding to develop these projects and programs. The highest priority of this program element was to formulate solutions that addressed the critical needs of these communities that do not have safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water. Overall, the findings and conclusions of the SAWPA DCI program were based upon information gathered from the three program elements. Report findings were presented to individual social groups including elected officials, local communities, Native communities, water-agencies, and mutual water companies. Findings revealed the social, cultural, and water-related strengths and needs of these communities in the watershed. From these findings, the program partners were also able to identify several strong thematic connections and disconnections among and between the various social groups. These focused on four key themes: water management, water rates and cost, communication, and water quality and demonstrated how water systems are collectively understood-and misunderstood-by various social groups in the watershed and helped to explain why one participant group's strength may be another's need. Several core conclusions and recommendations reflect the key barriers and challenges to strengthening agency engagement with overburdened and underrepresented groups. Language Barriers One of the consistent needs that surfaced throughout the program implementation process was the need for water agencies to commit to bridging language barriers between their staff and the communities they serve. With such a diverse watershed population, it is necessary that water-related decision-makers work with local constituents to identify translation projects and offer translators for relevant public meetings. As part of the program, SAWPA offered on-call translation services to public agencies and nonprofits. This included providing translation consultants for live translation of public meetings and for translation of water-related documents. Communication One of the factors that limits agency, decision-maker, and community member connections is simply a lack of funding or staff time devoted to communications. This is a broad acknowledgement that resource providers can do a better job of ensuring that critical water information is accessible to various publics, especially those most vulnerable to water-related challenges. Community members say that they often do not know how to find answers to their water-related questions or that they are not sure how to interpret the information they do find. It is recommended that water decision-makers devote staff time to maintaining long-term relationships with community-based organizations that have relationships with underrepresented and overburdened communities to better understand localized communication preferences. Tap Water Quality The most critical disconnection surfaced in this report are the prevalent community concerns about tap water quality. Water agencies need to address these concerns differently than they have historically. Community concerns are not just linked to reasons previously assumed by water providers, such as immigrant-status or lack of education. The report indicated that more work is necessary to overcome the physical and social disconnections that may impair water quality between the facility and the faucet, especially in economically distressed areas. It is recommended that water agencies work directly with community-based organizations to hear and respond to the localized concerns that people have about tap water. Connecting Strengths and Needs to Technical Assistance Projects The ethnographic model of collecting strengths and needs is unfamiliar to most public planning agencies, both as an approach and as a dataset. The insights that can be gleaned from this approach are highly valuable but are also complex and difficult to interpret and implement. It is the responsibility of agencies to gather civic input (community experiences) and translate those themes into strategies to meet the needs that emerge. It is recommended that DCI program groups design strong and inclusive working group structures that can connect the strengths and needs surfaced by communities to actionable projects and programs.

Like many agencies, DC Water is committed to further operationalizing and elevating equity in its capital investments. Some stakeholders have asked for a 'spending per neighborhood' analysis to verify that equity is being considered. While this is an important checkpoint to show the benefits of utility investments throughout the service area, it's also an opportunity to dive deeper. Complex interconnected infrastructure of varying ages and risks requires a more nuanced analysis to provide affordable rates and inter-generational equity in customer experiences, supporting the needs of customers not only in the 20-year planning horizon but over the next 100 years. To support inter-generational equity, DC Water is using an analytical approach in an 'Equity in CIP Planning' tool that goes far beyond a simplistic evaluation of spending per neighborhood to dive into the details of customer experiences, connect those experiences with needed capital investments and operational improvements, and tie the work together with asset management to reduce risks and manage costs equitably and efficiently. DC Water's Equity in CIP Planning tool also creates a two-way communication link between operations customer requests and further engagement opportunities for customers to understand and give input in utility priorities. This paper details the analysis tools and methods DC Water has developed to provide a more in-depth analytical approach for equitable outcomes as well as the outreach and engagement tools for building community trust in the approach. As part of recent Linear Sewer Facilities Plans for Water Distribution and Sewer Collection Systems, DC Water sought to develop a tool to analyze and connect how customer needs relate to investments in the interconnected sewer and water systems. Equitable investments for sewer and water are not as simple as directing resources to a particular vulnerable neighborhood. Sewers serve watersheds and sewersheds, and water infrastructure is connected in pressure zones. Large diameter sewers and water mains as well as treatment facilities, pump stations and green infrastructure serve large areas of customers. Additionally, customers are not static. They may live in one area of the District of Columbia (District) and work or attend school in another area, meaning the customer experience of sewer and water services goes beyond a single service connection. Many investments in the sewer and water systems also benefit customers throughout multiple neighborhoods and wards of the District. How to reflect this complexity in our analysis and engage stakeholders in evaluating the results in a meaningful way is a question worth considering. In support of serving this complex interconnected system, asset management principles integrated into the Equity in CIP Planning tool allow the District to prioritize equitable outcomes while simultaneously supporting efficient investments to reduce risk where the infrastructure needs are highest. A key element is to ensure that customer experiences are sought out and included in Operations data in a way that can be analyzed and systematically included in CIP planning along with data on system condition and risk. This requires quality checking and geo-locating past customer concerns previously recorded in text fields and updating Operations approaches to data gathering for the future to use data more analytically. DC Water identified and is now working to implement a 'sweet spot' of infrastructure rehabilitation level to best support inter-generational equity. This will result in a six-fold increase in capital investments in the linear sewer facilities in the next 10 years, ramping up from approximately $160 Million invested in the last 10 years to over $1 Billion invested in the next 10 years. This increased investment is a catalytical opportunity to engage with stakeholders in relationship and trust-building that DC Water is spending ratepayer dollars in an equitable way to improve their quality of life. In order to further embed equitable infrastructure decision-making into its capital programs and operations, DC Water is focusing on analyzing and identifying potential inequities in customer experiences and evaluating those within the context of social and environmental vulnerabilities. The focus of this work is to protect the needs of the most vulnerable communities from impacts such as flooding and sewage overflows, transportation and daily life disruptions from emergency repairs, and water pressure and water quality that doesn't meet established levels of service. This work supports DC Water's BluePrint 2.0 Strategic Plan imperatives of Equity, Resiliency, and Reliability. DC Water also developed a pilot to provide a scoring 'boost' for local sewer and water rehabilitation and other projects addressing vulnerable customer needs using the Centers for Disease Control and US EPA Environmental Justice Index. As part of a commitment to ongoing learning and adaptive management, DC Water then performed an analysis of the need and benefit of the pilot boost approach for project prioritization on improving customer outcomes and experiences in higher vulnerability communities. By plotting and analyzing key performance metrics such as sewer line breaks and water line breaks per mile in each neighborhood ward and each vulnerability index area, DC Water mathematically evaluated if there are inequities in customer experiences that require using a boost to the prioritization score in certain areas. During the ongoing implementation of the Linear Sewer Facilities Plans for Water Distribution and Sewer Collection Systems, DC Water is using an expanded customer engagement process that utilizes the Equity in CIP tool to tell visual stories that connect between customer experiences and utility investments. The tool brings together Key Performance Indicators and planned capital projects as well as information for customers about how to have problems addressed. The goal is to build trust and two-way communication between customers and the utility so that the intergenerational equity investments meet customer needs and provide community uplift.

Everyone has to do it. Few talk about it. It's one of those things you do the same way you did it last year, the year before, and the year before. Open last year's CCR, update the figures, send to your subject matter experts for a quality check and it's off to the printer and mail house. Your job is done, and you've complied with EPA Regulations. A couple weeks later, a customer opens their mailbox to find an oftentimes visually bland and unappealing letter from their water provider. If U.S. Postal Service statistics are correct, it's competing with nearly 500 other marketing pieces and catalogs that customer will get that year. If they even open it — and that's a big if — they'll notice from the first sentence that the language is overly technical, uses confusing industry jargon, and reads like a legal document. If you're lucky, they might scan the dense tables of figures, still without absorbing a single concept, and then give up. The next stop is the recycling bin. Utilities can do better. Many years ago, Charlotte Water's Public Affairs Division recognized that their CCR provided a rare opportunity to communicate with customers, enhance their brand, build relationships, and make human connections. Their annual Water Quality Report (WQR) was born. In 2021, Charlotte Water partnered with Raftelis to create a WQR that stands out among its competitors in the mailbox. Their piece focuses on two key factors that influence whether the report gets read or quickly recycled: design and accessibility. It's these same two factors that Raftelis focused on to create the winning entry to the Environmental Policy Innovation Center's Water Data Prize Competition last year. Both Charlotte Water and the Raftelis team saw the CCR not for what it is, but for the opportunity it delivers — a rare and critical moment to connect customers to the one thing they can't go without. This session will provide participants with ideas, insights, and guidance that can be scaled for use by the smallest utility with minimal resources to the largest utilities with maximum resources. Attendees will come away with a fresh eye on the old CCR, and the inspiration to turn this mandated report into a masterpiece.

As Buffalo Sewer prepares for its second decade of implementation of the approved Combined Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plan (LTCP), results of a recalibrated hydraulic model, updated Financial Capability Assessment, a cost-benefit analysis of early projects, a deeper understanding of the existing system's design, and increasing recognition of issues of environmental justice and implications of systemic racism and climate change have all driven a re-evaluation of how to achieve the goals of the LTCP while also building a more equitable, inclusive, and resilient city. Buffalo Sewer's approved 2014 LTCP made use of innovative strategies with a focus on Green Infrastructure and Real Time Controlled Smart Sewers. As we move forward into the next phase of the LTCP, we are learning how to implement Green Infrastructure in a more sustainable and maintainable way that also addresses long-standing disinvestment in the existing increasingly aged collection system. We are also finding new and innovative ways to implement Real Time Controlled Smart Sewer technology to take advantage of opportunities created by the historical design of our collection system and the disinvestment in redlined neighborhoods while also creating visible community benefits and simplifying maintenance. This presentation will review the development of the approved LTCP and its components. It will also review the projects completed under that plan and implementation issues experienced to date. It will also discuss how the recalibrated model has impacted the viability of the 2014 LTCP and its components. Additionally, the historical, economic, and climatic conditions of Buffalo and the resultant opportunities, risks, and restrictions that they create will be discussed. Finally, the updated LTCP will be presented. Currently, the updated Financial Capability Analysis is under review with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation with final approval expected in late 2021. The Model Recalibration is also under ongoing review by the regulators with approval expected in mid-Fall 2021. Six traditional Smart Sewer Projects have been completed, three additional traditional projects are in bidding or construction phases, and a final project which implements Smart Sewer technology at an existing pumping station is poised to go into operation by October 2021. Three additional traditional Smart Sewer projects have been identified for design during the 2022 Calendar Year, in addition, two next generation Smart Sewer projects have been identified for design during this same period, and several of the projects currently in design and implementation represent a global implementation strategy rather than a more traditional CSO or even waterbody specific strategy. Similarly, on the Green Infrastructure front, RainCheck 1.0 has been completed and it has become increasingly clear that while the demolition of vacant and abandoned homes has created vast swaths of new green space throughout large tracts of Buffalo at limited cost to Buffalo Sewer, the opportunity for further demolitions is limited and at the same time, bioretention cells within the public right of way are costly to construct and maintain and other green infrastructure techniques are more sustainable and create opportunities for other co-benefits without negatively impacting long-term residents in disinvested neighborhoods.

This presentation is a case study on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to detect issues and operational problems in sewer systems more quickly and reliably by identifying anomalies in sewer flow data, including: -Sudden shifts indicative of issues such as sensor failure or blockages in the system -More gradual changes in the data over longer periods of time, which point to issues like sensor drift or other less immediately obvious operational or environmental problems -Differences between calibrated hydraulic models and sensor data The authors will discuss the application of our AI based approach for detecting anomalies in a large water/wastewater agency located in the midwestern united states. We have found that our AI based approach is highly effective at detecting subtle anomalies such as sensor drift, as well as sudden shifts in the flow data. In some instances, it has detected issues weeks before they would have otherwise been detected during manual review or inspection. Not only is the solution effective, but we also chose an approach that is relatively easy to understand and explain, which makes it more actionable and less challenging to maintain. Through our presentation, the authors intend to highlight the critical role that engineering subject matter expertise played in the formulation of our successful approach, and demonstrate the success that can be achieved through the nexus of data science and engineering.

Water infrastructure Asset Management (AM) is recognized as a long-game focused on realizing value over the entire life cycle of facilities. This presentation will showcase recent advancements for one utility in leveraging asset management activities to address long-range strategic goals, implement their 'work plan', manage workload and resources, and use simple dashboards to 'move the needle' toward achieving agency goals. King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) provides regional wastewater conveyance and treatment services to 1.9 million people over a 424-square-mile service area in Washington state. WTD's wastewater system includes over $4 billion of conveyance and treatment infrastructure assets. As with most utilities, WTD is challenged by aging assets, including: Treatment and pumping facilities largely built in the 1960s, consisting of over 55,000 pieces of equipment, instruments, and control devices as well as land and buildings. A system of nearly 400 miles of conveyance pipelines, some of which are over 100 years old. Aging infrastructure is a major driver for capital spending and Operations & Maintenance priorities, and WTD has had a formal strategic asset management plan (SAMP) in place for almost 20 years. Updated every five years, the SAMP includes strategies, objectives, and a Work Plan for achieving related goals. WTD updated its SAMP and its Work Plan in early 2019 and implemented an 'Asset Management Work Plan Dashboard' to help guide programmatic activities related to asset management. As with other utilities, WTD faces challenges moving asset management programs toward success, such as: People: Overcoming lack of resources Gaining trust and support from all levels of the organization Breaking down barriers and cultural resistance to change Making everyone feel invested and valued as an integral part of the AM program. Processes: Defining and standardizing business processes Identifying and implementing industry best practices Assessing strengths and weaknesses and leveraging failures as learning opportunities Developing a plan to execute based on findings. Data: Establishing line-of-sight from tactical action plans all the way through to strategic goals and level of service objectives. Creating progress and performance metrics for the asset management program and holding AM and other staff accountable for reaching targets. Transitioning from traditional work planning to data driven prioritizations. 2023 WTD Initiatives Asset management is best accomplished as an enterprise-wide effort that engages resources and business processes from multiple workgroups in an organization. It also produces the best results as a continuous improvement process in making thoughtful and purposeful stepwise competency and performance advancements, as illustrated in Figure 1. As part of the WTD approach, several new initiatives were prioritized in 2023 following the dashboard-based approach. The initiatives are reflective of similar high-priority asset management needs at other utilities, and include: Condition Assessment Key Performance Indicators and Level of Service Reporting Risk Assessment and Replacement Costs Technology Planning and Implementation Spare Parts Management. The presentation will detail how several of these initiatives are being implemented, challenges that are being addressed, and progress to date. Figure 1 King County's continuous improvement process, leveraging the asset management work plan dashboard. Dashboard Management Approach WTD has used a dashboard management approach to guide and manage asset management activities following the release of their 2018 SAMP Update to advance the WTD Asset Management Program. The 2018 SAMP identified over 200 discrete initiatives including near-, medium-, and long-term activities. The dashboard approach has allowed WTD to identify priorities, assign resources, manage task interdependencies, and forecast work products. The presentation will outline how WTD uses and updates the dashboard for the Asset Management Program. Figure 2 The Asset Management Work Plan Dashboard gives asset managers, supervisors, and leadership insight into the performance of the asset management program, and resource needs and availability. Condition Assessment Consistent with work plan priorities, advancing condition assessment programs was identified as a key element for WTD's Asset Management Program. A current focus is to develop a Condition Assessment Manual to coordinate condition assessment programs used by WTD and the workflow and decision-making processes. Specific condition assessment programs WTD relies on include: Critical Asset Condition Assessment oCondition / Performance Monitoring for Target Assets Life Cycle Programs oAge-Based System Replacement for Identified Assets and Systems Engineering Project-Based Condition Assessment oProcess/Facility-Based Comprehensive Team Evaluations Resulting in Project Definitions oCoating / Corrosion Assessment oRoofing Assessment Linear Asset Condition Assessment oVisual Inspection and Criticality Informed The primary feature of the Condition Assessment Manual is a workflow that identifies the data sources, condition rating approaches, and organizational responsibilities related to the various condition assessment programs. Aggregating and prioritizing the results of the coordinated condition assessment programs allows WTD to accurately characterize risk and facility rehabilitation and replacement activities to reduce risk to the utility. The manual also allows WTD to measure and track risk to manage programmatic asset management progress and communicate priorities and progress to the WTD workgroups. The condition assessment initiative also leverages the significant utility effort to implement a new Maximo Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) across the utility. The transition has included substantial technical and logistical challenges, but also provides the opportunity for data management changes. WTD is using this opportunity to look broadly at the data life cycle (Figure 3) and to take full advantage of the benefits of Maximo's new technology capabilities, including tracking condition data in work orders to support decision-making. Figure 3 Leveraging information across the data life cycle The presentation will review the technical and resource requirements for the aggregate condition assessment program and outline data collection, decision-making, and coordination between the various contributing condition assessment efforts. This presentation will allow asset management professionals to gain insights from WTD's successful Strategic Asset Management Plan. The intended audience includes: Utility leadership interested in improving level of service delivery and determining the best way to 'move the needle' through smart allocation of limited resources and competing priorities. Asset Managers looking for innovative ways to advance asset management initiatives and to communicate effectively with leadership and staff. Financial Managers seeking alternative methods for developing financial strategies and plans. Supervisors, operators, and engineers in charge of day-to-day activities that support asset management, looking for ideas on how to overcome common obstacles to implementing key asset management initiatives such as condition assessment. Participants will come away better equipped to develop tactical, actionable initiatives and tasks that will help advance a successful asset management program through a continuous improvement process.

Question: In your opinion, what does OWASA do exceptionally well? Answer: 'Allows users to track water usage and see what they're being charged for; service is top-notch. You can always reach someone at the office if you need to. Even emergencies seem to be handled well (ie water main break a couple years back).' Answer: 'Community service. I love how easy it is to include a monthly contribution with my water bill and help out others.' Answer: 'I appreciate OWASA's communication. They communicate very clearly when bills are due (and exactly when they'll be paid if using autodraft). Recently they were testing systems in my neighborhood with smoke and gave lots of notice, including diagrams about what they were doing.' In 2021, having accomplished much of what was included in its most recent strategic plan, the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) began a comprehensive process to update its plan for the next five to six years. OWASA has a 35 square-mile service area in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in North Carolina and provides water and sewer service for 22,000 accounts. Guiding principles for the strategic plan update included actively seeking to engage the Board, staff, the community, and other stakeholders, including proactive outreach to gather feedback to include and consider diverse perspectives. This engagement included an intensive environmental and organizational scan, with activities such as stakeholder work sessions, departmental strategic priority setting, peer reviews, industry publication reviews, and four separate surveys, which collectively garnered thousands of responses. While the overarching process of updating the strategic plan is still underway, considerable data analysis of the community survey has been completed and will be the subject of this presentation. Stakeholder input is invaluable in gauging the community's perception of the utility, as well as the community's priorities and preferences. To gather community feedback, and to be sensitive to COVID restrictions, OWASA created a tailored, 16-question online survey, available in both English and Spanish. The survey was hosted on the Zoho platform and was extensively promoted using a series of outreach strategies, including a direct email to all OWASA customers (for whom OWASA had email addresses), bus advertisements, tabling at the library, neighborhood kiosk flyers, and repeated social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Nextdoor. Respondents were asked what words come to mind when they think of OWASA ('water,' 'sewer,' 'clean,' 'reliable,' and 'expensive' were top choices) and to rate their satisfaction with OWASA's performance in a number of different areas. The highest levels of satisfaction were in drinking water quality, service reliability, and communications, while satisfaction levels were lower in cost of service. A significant percentage of respondents (more than 35% in each category) indicated that they didn't know how satisfied they were with regard to OWASA's environmental protection efforts, commitment to sustainability, and water/wastewater infrastructure construction, which suggests that there are areas where additional communication may be helpful. One of the other survey questions that will be invaluable for the organization as it works to clarify its priorities for the next five to six years was around responsibilities. OWASA asked, in addition to remaining committed to providing safe drinking water, protecting the environment through wastewater treatment, and meeting state and federal regulatory requirements, what responsibilities customers believed were most important for the utility to focus on. The most common responses included adapting to the effects of climate change, enhancing efforts to protect regional water quality, and preparing for emergencies and cyber threats. Most notably, when asked if respondents would be willing to pay more to address those responsibilities, more than two thirds of respondents indicated that they definitely or probably would be willing to pay more. This information, along with other community, stakeholder, and employee input will provide essential context for OWASA's Board and staff as they continue to work to update the strategic plan. As of the writing of this abstract, OWASA is still in the first phase of our strategic planning effort: the organizational and environmental scan. In addition to sharing the findings of the survey, our presentation will include what staff and Board did with that information in the development of the strategic plan.

Our presentation will summarize the development and implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) tools Citizens Energy Group has developed to provide predictive operational decision support for combined sewer overflow (CSO) facilities. Citizens developed these tools by efficiently leveraging its prior investments in collection system modeling and metering. Our AI/ML tools consist of artificial neural networks fit to long-term datasets to predict inflows to CSO facilities using the 72-hour NOAA radar rainfall forecast. Both the rainfall and CSO facility inflow are embedded in a Power BI dashboard for efficient communication to Citizens staff. We developed this dashboard without incurring any additional software cost and believe any wastewater utility operating wet weather facilities can implement a similar AI/ML tool to ours. Citizens Energy Group is the combined water, wastewater, natural gas, steam, and chilled water utility in Indianapolis. Citizens is presently implementing a 20-year CSO consent decree with required completion in 2025. Consent decree compliance is primarily achieved through the DigIndy Tunnel system, a 28-mile long, 18-foot diameter tunnel network. Citizens is also implementing a pair of storage facilities in the Upper White River and Upper Pogues Run watersheds. Citizens, like all utilities implementing a consent decree, has made significant investments in modeling and metering its collection system, and has multiple years of meter data and model results on the shelf from recent regulatory and design support activity. While Citizens has confidence in its InfoWorks ICM model of the collection system, computational limitations prevent the model from being applied in real time or for immediate prediction of future rainfall events. In order to transform the collection system model from a design tool into a predictive operational tool, Citizens developed neural networks for the DigIndy Tunnel system and the Upper Pogues Run storage tank. These neural networks effectively serve as an extension of Citizens' collection system model to simulate inflow to the tunnel or tank in a matter of seconds. Since both facilities will begin operation at the beginning of 2022, Citizens utilized several years of collection system model input and output data to develop the neural networks. Figure 1 presents the architecture diagram for the AI/ML tools. Within Power BI, embedded Python scripts using the MetPy library (Unidata, 2021) connect to the NOAA server and obtain the 72-hour National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) radar forecast for rainfall and temperature. The forecasted rainfall data is compiled for the CSO facility service area and temperature is utilized to estimate evapotranspiration (Hargreaves and Samani, 1982) for use in the neural networks. Citizens developed standard feed forward neural networks to predict inflow volume to the tunnel and storage tank similar to the collection system model. Figure 2 presents a scatterplot comparing each modeled inflow event to the tunnel system for precipitation years 2016 through 2019 to the neural network prediction. The inputs to the neural network are rainfall, peak intensity, antecedent dry days, the previous day's rainfall, and evapotranspiration. The total inflow volume from the neural network was within one percent of the InfoWorks collection system model simulation, with a R2 of 93%. Citizens evaluated input parameter sensitivity of the neural network and determined that for the storage tunnel, rainfall is the nearly an order of magnitude more important than any of the other input parameters. However, for the Upper Pogues Run storage tank that serves a much smaller watershed area, peak intensity is nearly as important as rainfall. Citizens initiated a desktop test deployment in early 2021 and progressed to an automated test deployment that has been completed at the time of the abstract. In the automated deployment, the rainfall forecast and subsequent inflow volume forecast is generated hourly, with results posted on Citizens' internal SharePoint. The rainfall forecast and forecasted inflow volume are presented though an online Power BI dashboard. We will present our method of deployment of this tool as well as other options for automated deployment that wastewater utilities may consider. Table 1 presents an example forecast from the neural network for July 15 – July 17, 2021. The forecasted inflow volume is based on the NDFD on July 14, 2021. In other words, should the tunnel system have been operational on July 16th, operational staff would have had an estimate of the magnitude of inflow more than a day before the event occurred. Over the course of the deployment, the BI dashboards were expanded to also collect NWS river stage forecasts and actual rainfall data through the application programming interface (API) provided by ADS as part of the PRISM interface to Citizens' rain gauge and flow meter network. Using the API key, Citizens developed a process to compare the forecasted rainfall from NOAA to the actual rainfall from the gauge network. From March 2021 through July 2021, the total forecasted rainfall was 23.5 inches, compared to 22.3 inches of actual gauge rainfall. An encouraging finding is that seventy-six percent (76%) of the rain events were forecasted within two-tenths of an inch of the actual gauge rainfall. We believe our presentation will benefit any wastewater utility that is operating or soon to be operating a wet-weather storage, treatment, or pumping facility to address combined sewer or sanitary sewer peak flows. We will provide a roadmap for any utility to implement a similar AI/ML solution for predictive operational decision support that can be implemented without any commercial software cost.

In 2020, Public Health Departments struggled to control SARS-CoV-2 spread in communities. As infected individuals did not see any symptom for few days, they unknowingly continued spreading the virus within their community. Lots of lives were lost, and the entire healthcare system was stressed. Initially, clinical testing was the only means to detect the virus presence. However, this testing is after-the-fact and, hence, too late. As a result, control measures such as social distancing and mask mandates were implemented. Besides having a negative impact on the economy, such measures were not 100% enforceable. Tracking and preventing the outbreak was challenging. Contact tracing is one way to see where the virus was and is going, but once again it's still after-the-fact of spreading the virus. In this chaotic environment, wastewater surveillance provided a new way to track and predict the virus's spread. When an individual is infected with SARS-CoV-2, he/she sheds the virus through their stool which ends up in wastewater. When such wastewater is analyzed, it provides information on the presence of the virus, as early as seven days prior to detection through clinical testing. Similar studies were done in the past for viral outbreaks such as Polio. It is now established that Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a valuable population level approach for monitoring viral presence. Analysis on samples collected at a Wastewater treatment plant influent provides catchment-wide virus presence to establish trends. Whereas analysis on samples collected in wastewater collection system, close to source, finds virus prevalence in local area such as neighborhood, dorms, hospitals, and nursing home. Finding city-wide trends can help implement programs such as mask mandates and social distancing before it is too late. By finding virus presence in a local area, quick small-scale clinical testing can be performed to narrow down infection to individual or building levels before it is widespread. For an accurate analysis, it is critical that collected wastewater samples are source representative. Otherwise, garbage in, garbage out. This presentation will explain type samplers and sampling methods to be used based on purpose and location. The presentation will cover the following topics: - Purpose of wastewater analysis – - Detecting prevalence, Tracking, and/or Trend analysis - Target area – City, zip code, neighborhood, building (e.g. Dorm, Nursing home, Hospital) - How to select sampling location based on the above purpose – Treatment plant, collection system network, building outlet? - Types of sampling methods - Grab sampling vs composite sampling. Pros and cons - What types of samplers should be used based on location and purpose – - Permanent or portable - With or without refrigeration - What are the best sampling methods based on location, purpose, and type of sampler? - What bottle configuration should be used based on purpose – Single bottle or multi-bottles - How to transport and preserve samples. How to store samples – short term vs long term.

Access to a safe and reliable water supply is an essential part of ensuring public health and building community resiliency. With continued stress on traditional water sources, and rising exploration of alternative water supplies, water reuse is becoming a larger area of focus in communities. Water reuse, or water recycling, is a proven, science-based process that intentionally captures wastewater, stormwater, saltwater, or graywater and treats it for a designated beneficial freshwater purpose such as drinking, industrial processes, surface or ground water replenishment, and watershed restoration. As the water industry explores recycling water for the purpose of drinking (i.e., potable reuse), communication and public education has been identified as a critical factor in enabling project success. Concerted efforts are being made by utilities and organizations to reach the general public and consumers to communicate the safety of water reuse. Building relationships and a shared knowledge of water reuse processes, risks, and safety between the public health and medical communities and the water sector is key. This session will feature Bart Weiss, a leader in potable reuse in Florida and the nation, to discuss communication and public education around water reuse, particularly as it relates to engaging with medical and public health professionals. The Water Research Foundation Project 13-02 clearly identified the importance of communication plan that includes medical and public health professionals. It is known that community members seek advice on the health of water reuse from their medical professionals and that the public is interested in communication around the safety, quality, and treatment process for direct potable reuse. Building off this knowledge, this presentation will draw from numerous case studies and research around public education, highlighting the importance of engaging public health, health care, and water sector professionals throughout the public outreach process. More broadly, this work will summarize various activities through the WateReuse Association's Public Health and Medical Community Initiative. The University of Texas, Houston School of Public Health and El Paso Water represent one such partnership between public health and water sector professionals. This partnership enabled a greater understanding of how community members respond to various forms of public education. Such findings include the increase in support as residents learn more about potable water reuse (figure 1). Additional partnerships include the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida's collaboration on Florida's Potable Reuse plan and education efforts throughout the state. This partnership builds off the knowledge that the public wants to hear from medical professionals, and in turn enables those medical professionals with key water safety information. Dr. Donna Petersen, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of South Florida is working with WateReuse members to incorporate presentations on water reuse systems into her curriculum to properly educate Florida residents in anticipation of potable reuse in the state. Expanding these efforts nationwide will be another key to the success of the Public Health and Medical Community Initiative. Partnerships with health professionals are not the only means for the water sector to effectively engage in public education, media outreach such as that with Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN visiting El Paso Water to discuss water reuse (figure 2) and recycled water brewing such the New Water Brew Competition can also support a robust communication strategy (figure 3). Allowing the public to hear from established, trusted media sources better enables understanding of the health risks associated with potable reuse without being lost in technical jargon. In a different way, hearing from brewers on the quality recycled water focuses the conversation on the treatment processes and water quality rather than water history. Such projects, coupled with partnerships with health professionals, enable a successful public outreach strategy. This session is aimed at broadcasting key communication techniques and partnerships to better inform participants in their own outreach. Largely, the goal is to open broader conversations of the nexus between public health and water treatment.

The City of Vancouver, British Columbia, is working to develop an integrated or 'one water' approach to delivering water-related infrastructure (i.e., potable, sanitary, and stormwater) to the Cambie Corridor, a rapidly developing transit corridor south of downtown. The current water-related infrastructure is beyond capacity; and a recent land-use plan for the 1,000-hectare corridor revealed that the population living and working there is expected to more than double in the coming decades. These land-use pressures along with climate change and ecosystem health concerns necessitate a fresh, holistic look at all forms of water infrastructure serving the corridor. To create a plan for the corridor, the City used a collaborative engagement process to develop a water-servicing vision and a multi-benefit assessment approach for evaluating one-water opportunities (i.e., programs, policies, and projects). Opportunities include various types of distributed green and blue-green stormwater infrastructure, regional green stormwater management facilities, water conservation and efficiency strategies, site and district scale non-potable water reuse (e.g., rainwater, greywater, and foundation drainage), and policies and programs to mandate, incentivize, and/or encourage private investments and partnerships. The assessment approach, which will be the focus of this presentation, was used to identify, value, screen, and ultimately optimize the suite of opportunities needed to meet the City's objectives. The assessment approach included several analytical tools working in tandem, including (1) a custom-built Water Balance Model paired with a calibrated hydrologic and hydraulic model to evaluate opportunity performance, (2) a GIS tool to help site opportunities, (3) a Decision Support Tool to value ecological and community co-benefits and measures of reliability and feasibility, (4) a scenario planning analysis to account for risks and future uncertainty, and (5) an optimization tool that uses advanced statistical algorithms to identify the ideal combination of opportunities that meets water-servicing targets, minimizes costs, and maximizes co-benefits. This assessment approach allowed the City to balance the trade-offs inherent in a multi-objective analysis in a defensible, transparent, and easy-to-understand way. The effort culminated in development of a high-level long-term water servicing strategy for the corridor and a more detailed short-term capital plan for investments in the next 4 to 8 years.

Abstract Rising concern of Perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS) contamination of our ecosystem has sparked interest in this pollutant as it pertains to water and waste management. While PFAS sources are numerous, it is widely believed that firefighting foam and extensive industrial uses are common pathways for PFAS compounds to proliferate into our ecosystem. In an attempt to better understand the fate and transport of PFAS compounds undergoing supercritical water oxidation (SCWO), a one (1) wet ton per day scale SCWO system was employed to study the elimination efficiencies of this process. There is a pressing need to develop and validate advanced treatment technologies that can destroy PFAS in a variety of substrates. In this paper, we report on how three distinct PFAS waste substrates from three different sources were treated using SCWO process. The waste includes lime stabilized sludge from a municipal wastewater resource recovery facility; aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) from a DoD facility; and spent ion exchange resin from a 'pump and treat' water treatment facility. Supercritical water oxidation or SCWO for short, is a physical-thermal process that relies on the unique reactivity and transport properties of water above its critical point of 374 °C and 218 atm. At these conditions, organics are fully soluble in supercritical water, and with the addition of oxygen, all organics rapidly and completely oxidized to form carbon dioxide, clean water, and inorganic salts. The studies examined a variety of PFAS compounds, both targeted and non-targeted, but most specifically focused on PFOA and PFOS. These two compounds are the most studied PFAS compounds, they are highly toxic and most prolific in our ecosystem. SCWO, on average, was able to eliminate 99.95% of PFOA and 99.99% of PFOS across all waste substrates, and greater than 99.9% elimination of all other PFAS compounds combined. Non-targeted PFAS was accounted for using laboratory scale verification tests by employing fluorine mass balance. No hydrogen fluoride was found in the effluent gas, and all the fluorine from the destroyed PFAS was accounted for as fluoride in the effluent water, with no low molecular weight or volatile PFAS compounds in the emission. This paper will cover the pre-treatment, pre-preparation and supercritical water oxidation requirements for the various waste inputs to ensure complete destruction of recalcitrant wastes without producing any undesired byproducts. The studies produced valuable data and design parameters to support design and deployment of SCWO for real world applications. Introduction - Section removed to fit 9,000 character count - Material and Method An AirSCWO 1 system was used for these studies, this system is the smallest in scale, and designed to continuously treat aqueous waste of about 1 m3 or 1 wet ton of sludge at 10-20% dry solids content per day (Figure 2). The system consists of a 25-gallon feed hopper integrated with a homogenization tank with internal recirculation to keep the slurry in suspension. A high-pressure pump transfers the homogenized waste to the SCWO reactor via a heat exchanger, to preheat the incoming slurry. A high-pressure compressor provides air, also preheated using a heat exchanger, followed by a plug flow once through SCWO reactor. Three cooling heat exchangers and depressurizing equipment bring the outputs to near ambient conditions. For treatability studies, a minimum of 5 gallons is required for a representative run, but larger volumes of wastes are needed to simulate real world operating conditions. A typical run lasts about 12-36 hours, during which the process operates at different conditions, until steady state performance is established, at which point samples of all effluents (liquid, gaseous, solids) are collected and analyzed to determine treatment performance, including fate of N, P, organics and key metals. Most operating parameters are monitored in real time while others, such as trace and emerging contaminants are analyzed off-line using grab sampling. Process operating parameters were monitored for energy balances and energy recovery, these data are used to develop detailed modeling for scaled systems. In an effort to demonstrate the efficacy of SCWO for PFAS elimination for varied input slurries, three wastes from three different sources were selected for the studies. The three wastes are (i) municipal wastewater sludge, which was stabilized using lime but contained high concentrations of PFAS; (ii) full strength aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) and (iii) ion exchange (IX) resin from a pump and treat system, which is sequestering PFAS compounds in the adsorption media. These wastes all pose different challenges, for example, the need for AFFF to be diluted, making it calorie poor and requiring cofuel; or IX wastes being generated once every 6 months or so, requiring the waste to be stored and processed over the period between changes. Results The first study was treating PFAS laden lime stabilized sludge, results for which show that greater than 99% conversion of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) to energy, and elimination of 99.95% for PFOA and 99.99% for PFOS. Table 1 shows that the removal across all carboxylic acid (PFCAs) compounds was greater than 99.9%, and across all sulfonic acid (PFSA's) compounds was greater than 99.99%. This waste had no detectable precursors and SCWO demonstrated excellent elimination rates for short chained (6 Carbon and less) PFAS compounds. The process achieved greater than 99.99% elimination across other 24 derivatives of PFAS found in the sludge. In this study, PFOS was the predominant compound and constituted 88% of the influent PFAS but only 3% of the effluent concentration. In the second study, the AirSCWOTM process treated AFFF, diluted down to about 30 times. About 25 L of dilute AFFF was processed (Krause, M. et al., 2022), only 9 compounds of the 28 analyzed were detected in the influent. PFOS was reduced over 99.99%, and PFOA nearly complete at 100%. Table 2 shows that the removal across all carboxylic acid (PFCAs) compounds was greater than 99.9%, and across all sulfonic acid (PFSA's) compounds was greater than 99.99%. This waste had detectable precursors and greater than 99.9% removal was achieved. Greater than 99.99% elimination rates were demonstrated for short chained PFAS compounds. Total targeted PFAS elimination was established at 99.99% over the course of the experiment. In this study, PFOS was again the predominant compound, and constituted 72% of the influent PFAS and 45% of the effluent concentration. The third study was a demonstration aiming to process spent ion exchange resin, a waste byproduct of water treatment, specifically targeting PFAS compounds. The results from the study treating IX demonstrated that PFOS was reduced over 98%, and PFOA nearly complete at 100%. Table 3 shows that the removal across all carboxylic acid (PFCAs) compounds was greater than 99.9%, and across all sulfonic acid (PFSA's) compounds was greater than 99%. This waste had detectable precursors and nearly 99% removal was achieved. Greater than 99.9% elimination rates were demonstrated for short chained PFAS compounds . Total targeted PFAS elimination was greater than 99.5% over the course of the experiment. In this study, both PFHXS and PFOS were the predominant compounds, and constituted 71% of the influent PFAS and 90% of the effluent concentration. The reactor residence time within the SCWO reactor ranged between 68 seconds for all the studies. Greater destruction of PFAS can be achieved by extending the reaction time (e.g., to greater than 10 seconds) to the desired log-reduction of specific PFAS compounds, especially in highly concentrated wastes such as aqueous film forming foam and ion exchange. The non-targeted PFAS elimination was verified at laboratory scale at Duke University by employing fluorine mass balance. No hydrogen fluoride was found in the effluent gas, and all the fluorine from the destroyed PFAS was accounted for as fluoride in the effluent water with no low molecular weight or volatile PFAS emission. (Deshusses, M.A., 2020) Summary As the studies demonstrate, supercritical water oxidation using the AirSCWOTM system can be effectively and efficiently utilized to achieve near complete PFAS elimination in various PFAS contaminated substrates, rendering the process outputs - i.e., water and air free of contaminants. Other studies involving aqueous slurries including pharmaceuticals, PFAS concentrates and microplastic have been successfully treated using AirSCWOTM, demonstrating the versatility of the process to treat and eliminate recalcitrant wastes. With full scale units being implemented, these studies offer valuable insights to further optimize the process and achieve even greater performance and cost effectiveness.