PNCWA is excited to welcome Dr. Dan Prinzing, Executive Director of the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights as the keynote speaker for this year's conference.

Join us on Tuesday, September 14, 2021 for a special coffee hour at the Wassmuth Center. Dr. Prinzing will be hosting our group beginning at 7:30am for coffee and a short tour of the center. 

The Wassmuth Center for Human Rights was founded in 1996 for the purpose of constructing a memorial to human rights.  That vision became a reality when the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial opened to the public in 2002.  The Memorial is a world-class educational park inspired by Anne Frank’s faith in humanity.  A living, vibrant interactive classroom for Idaho’s school children, it inspires people of all ages to contemplate the moral implications of their actions and the scope of their civic responsibilities.

We will be meeting at 7:00am in the lobby of The Grove Hotel and walking to the Wassmuth Center (.8 mile). 

Virtual Speakers

8:00 am to 8:45 am

Sharon Napier & Ashley Harper

The National Water Reuse Action Plan (WRAP) and what it means for the Pacific Northwest

The National Water Reuse Action Plan (WRAP) adopts a proactive approach to strengthening the security, sustainability, and resilience of our nation’s water resources. It builds on more than four decades of water reuse expertise and promotes a growing collaboration among federal, state, local, and private sector reuse efforts. The first iteration of the WRAP was released in February 2020 and included over 80 partners who reflect a diverse cross section of the water user community.

The WRAP collaborative continues to grow through the addition of new partnerships and actions that address challenges and barriers and fulfill state, tribal, and water sector needs related to water reuse. More than 100 organizations are currently driving progress on over 40 actions across 11 strategic themes (e.g., finance support, policy  coordination, integrated research) which demonstrate the meaningful advancements that action leaders and partners have made across the sector. Progress on action implementation is highlighted through the WRAP Online Platform, which promotes transparency and accountability by reflecting the current implementation status for all WRAP actions.

The success of the WRAP is directly tied to contributions and collaborations from members of the water community. Ultimately, the effort seeks to ensure that water reuse is accessible, straightforward to implement, and sensitive to local needs.

This session will focus on WRAP progress that addresses barriers to reuse across a range of topics including technical, institutional, and financial and will demonstrate cross-action collaboration, identify potential gaps, and exemplify the evolving nature of the WRAP. The session will also recognize and highlight the diversity of action leaders and partners and invite involvement from participants.

A standing goal of the WRAP is to enhance and grow partnerships across the water user community to facilitate integrated action and daylight progress and examples of water reuse.

8:45 am to 9:30 am

Nick Smith, Jacque Klug and Holly Tichenor

State focused partnerships towards advancing reuse in Idaho, Oregon and Washington 

This session will focus on showcasing results form a series of three professionally moderated workshops held in each state (Idaho/Oregon/Washington) with industrial, agricultural, utilities and municipal reuse stakeholders.  The workshops provided opportunities for the participants to network and share various needs and challenges including operational and maintenance, permitting/regulatory, funding and public perception concerns.  The workshops culminated in a series of recommended actions for WRA-PNW teams and interested groups from each state.  These action items are part of an overall effort to support operators, policy makers, utility manager and interested parties involved in water reuse as a water.

Virtual Speakers

10:30am - 11:15am

Pat Heins, Shawn McKone, and Tressa Nicholas

So you need a permit in the Pacific Northwest…now what?

Regulators from Idaho, Oregon and Washington will discuss the steps for obtaining a permit to use recycled or reclaimed water in their state.

11:15 am - 12:00 pm

Jay Irby

Water Reuse: Waste of Time or Innovative Opportunity?

21 years ago, a small community located just North of Boise decided to lay down some roots. 7 years later, another planned community sprang up. As we all know, there are some rather large obstacles immediately North of Boise that create some interesting infrastructure challenges that would be far too costly for these small communities to encumber. As luck would have it, there was an option. Hidden Springs and Avimor both made a bold decision to build and operate their own wastewater renewal facilities and find beneficial uses for the renewed water onsite as opposed to piping several miles and lift stations to the nearest municipal treatment plant or becoming point source dischargers. These decisions created incredible growth potential as it allowed the communities to reduce treatment costs for their residents, it allowed builders to build without exorbitant connection fees, and it helps keep irrigation costs low because they didn’t have to purchase irrigation water from the municipal supplier. This presentation will take a look at the current situations for both of these communities, some lessons that have been learned over the years, and provide insight for any engineers or operators looking to pursue reuse, and how both parties should work together to accomplish the needs of their constituents.

1:15 pm - 2:00 pm

Todd Miller

Launching Community Recycled Water Use Through Collaborative Planning for Multiple Drivers

The Eugene/Springfield Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC) is preparing to launch its first-ever outside-the-fence recycled water use. This milestone is being reached after a decade-long planning process to explore, study, and collaborate on “the right water at the right time at the right place.” The MWMC is now looking to break ground on construction of Class A recycled water facilities combining creative use of existing infrastructure, partnerships to demonstrate meaningful and growth-oriented applications, and establishing the MWMC as community water resource partner with an eye toward future regulatory compliance and climate resiliency assets.

2:00 pm - 2:45 pm

Jacque Klug

Using Research to Inform Community Decisions about Recycled Water Use

Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) is the term applied to a broad array of trace chemicals that come from consumer, commercial and industrial products that are measurable in the environment. CECs are generally unregulated. Wastewater effluent and recycled water has been identified as a potential source of CECs. This session will describe CEC research projects being done to examine CEC presence in recycled water and the risk of CEC exposure from uses of recycled water for food crop irrigation and groundwater recharge. The research study design will be presented along with preliminary research results. The session will describe how research is being shared within the community and informing community discussions about the future of reuse in the respective regions. These presentations will provide a research and communication framework for communities that can be applied in discussing CECs and risk. 

Virtual Speakers

3:00 pm to 3:45 pm

Bob Davis

Case Study for Datacenter Cooling Water Reuse 

The Quincy Water Reuse Utility (QWRU) has just been commissioned by the City of Quincy to treat non-contact cooling water for reuse back into a portion of the Quincy datacenters.  Microsoft, Washington Department of Ecology, US Bureau of Reclamation, and the Quincy-Columbia Irrigation District have played major roles in the success of this utility; the first of its kind in the State of Washington.  Non-contact cooling water blowdown is treated to remove cations and anions that reduce the efficiency of evaporative cooling and helps to reduce the volume of cooling water used.  In the past, potable water has been used for cooling water; however, this water is very hard and contains high levels silica.  Both components negatively impact the cooling equipment; requiring additional equipment maintenance to retain the equipment’s cooling efficiency.  The QWRU treats the cooling water to remove hardness and silica before being pumped back to the datacenters for cooling water.  Cooling requires make-up water to replace from 60 to 80 percent water loss due to evaporation.  Make-up water is provided by USBR M&I Water, potable water and, in the future, municipal Class A water.  The QWRU consists of 10 distinct and specific water treatment unit processes to provide reuse water suitable for cooling.  The QWRU is capable of providing from 2,304,000 to up to 3,600,000 gallons of treated water per day.   Residuals from the treatment system is managed with on-site evaporation ponds and sludge management systems.  The QWRU saves a precious potable water resource in an arid region of Washington State and will save up to 398,000,000 gallons of potable water in a year; enough to provide 5,450 residents potable water for a year.  

3:45 pm to 4:45 pm

Haili Matsukawa

Strategic Planning: the key to internal alignment and program momentum

Can't seem to reach agreement? Often times, project progress is stifled by a difference of opinions. How can we create alignment among technical professionals, management, elected officials, and ratepayers?

Meaningful engagement, clear goals, consistent communications can create the synergy needed to get complex programs off the ground and the momentum required to carry them out. Even within a divided community, strategic planning can identify common threads, shared values, and a desired vision of the future.

Using regional and interstate case studies, we will discuss how strategic planning, inclusive communications, and two-way engagement create alignment, public trust, and confidence in water reuse solutions. This interactive session will provide you with the tools and tactics needed to turn barriers into breakthroughs.

Move for Water in-person meet up with Halley @ 5:00-5:30pm - meet at The Grove.  https://conference.pncwa.org/water-for-people

The livestreaming of the awards ceremony will begin at 7:15pm MT.