The Northwest Environmental Training Center is presenting the National 2009 Water Quality Conference to be held on May 20 - 22, 2009 in San Antonio, Texas. This exciting and informative meeting will address the issues and discuss the technology of the quality and supply of the world's most valuable resource - water. This conference will intertwine four tracks through many workshop sessions in this three-day conference. This event is not one to miss!

Session 1 - 8:30 A.M. - 9:30 A.M.

Margaret Osbourne - ARRA Green Coordinator, Project Officer
U.S. EPA Region 6

Implementing the objectives of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 using the State Revolving Fund Programs

Margaret’s presentation will describe both the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Programs and will outline the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) infusion of capital into those programs. The presentation will also address the ARRA’s additional provisions and requirements with a special focus on the “Green Project Reserve.”

Session 2A - 10:00 A.M. - 10:45 AM.,

Brian Bohnsack - Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Keeping the Waterways Clean: The clean vessel act grant program and the fish habitat action plan

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its state cooperators are undertaking progressive programs that are resulting in cleaner waterways and drinking water. These programs have opportunities for new partners to participate and can be an additional tool for resource managers to consider using to help keep our environment clean. The Clean Vessel Act grant program is an essential tool for many states. This federal program provides grants to states for sewage pumpout stations for recreational boaters. In turn, many states provide the funding to private and government marinas to provide this essential service to boaters. States have expanded the program opportunities to include deploying floating restrooms and mobile sewage pumpout boats in order to provide boaters ample opportunities to keep the waterways clean of their sewage. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state fish and wildlife agencies are implementing strategies associated with the National Fish Habitat Action Plan to restore critical habitat to prevent erosion and reduce non-point source pollution. These programs offer exciting opportunities for new partners to expand these existing efforts while working cooperatively with a wide range of government agencies to promote clean water.

Craig Pedersen - URS

Water Supply Planning in Texas: Lessons for the rest of the nation

Description of the evolution of the Texas water supply planning structure, comparisons with other states, and what other states might learn for Texas given more competition for water, environmental and possible climate change considerations.

Session 2B - 11:00 A.M. - 11:45 AM.,

Homer C. Emery - San Antonio Water System

Impact of EPA's Risk Management Program on Chlorine Gas Disinfection Practices and Trends In the Water Industry

Less than six percent of total worldwide chlorine production is used for disinfecting drinking water and wastewater. However, this segment of the industry is responsible for the operation and maintenance of more than seventy-five percent of the chlorine gas facilities in the U.S. which exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Risk Management Program (RMP) threshold level of 2,500 pounds. In many communities, local water and wastewater utilities represent the single largest use of hazardous chemicals.

This paper reports the findings of a survey of more than one hundred RMP reports submitted to EPA from water and wastewater facilities and a review of chlorine accident reports from state and federal agencies.

While "chlorine gas" accidents related to water and wastewater operations may appear to be high, the vast majority of these accidents actually involve the use of calcium or sodium hypochlorite. Case histories and lessons learned from chlorine accidents involving sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite and gaseous chlorine are presented. The impact of EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) on chlorine gas disinfection practices and trends in the water and wastewater industry are also discussed.

Thomas E. Ennis, PE, LEED AP- City of Austin

Environmental Commissioning: Applying green building principles to fragile watersheds

The plan to build a new 300 mgd water treatment plant at an environmentally-sensitive site called for a new approach to verify that the design, construction and operations would meet environmental goals. This project had every environmental challenge imaginable (karst geology, onsite recharge features, downstream springs that were habitat for a rare salamander that was a candidate endangered species, endangered bird habitat surrounding site, an endangered cave invertebrate, chlorine safety issues, lime sludge disposal issues).

The team borrowed an idea from the green building industry, called "building commissioning." Building Commissioning is required for LEED projects and occurs when an independent agent verifies the all aspects of the building design and construction meet the owner's goal. The project team decided to create a team that would review all project decisions to verify that environmental goals were met. The environmental commissioning process included special monitoring studies designed to determine impacts and remedies during plant construction and operation. This included groundwater monitoring, biological monitoring, water quality monitoring, dye studies of karst features, mark and recapture studies for salamanders, stormwater sampling stations, and bird surveys. As the true cost of building on this sensitive site emerged, an alternative site was found and the project has been relocated. Environmental commissioning is also be applied at this less sensitive site. , Mr. Ennis manages a group of 75 scientists and engineers responsible for water resource evaluation, stormwater treatment, stream restoration, pollution prevention, water quality monitoring and environmental education. He interacts with staff, developers, architects, and elected officials on a routine basis. His group’s efforts have recently been nationally recognized for water quality protection and the nation’s first ban of coal tar containing pavement sealants.

A notable project was the development of a continuous environmental review process termed “environmental commissioning” for a $400 million drinking water treatment project that is located adjacent to the habitat of 3 endangered species.

Session 3B - 2:15 P.M. - 2:45 P.M., (Concurrent Session - Room)

Robert Kroger - Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Mississippi State University

Assessing the Water Quality Benefits of Vegetated Drainage Ditches in Agricultural Production

Vegetated agricultural drainage ditches are ubiquitous features of agricultural production landscapes across the conterminous United States. Drainage is vital for crop sustainability and production, yet is often blamed for water quality issues in downstream receiving waters. Often farmers and managers are likely to maintain their drainage ditches devoid of vegetation increasing the production function of drainage within the ditch. Historically, drainage ditches have been viewed as conduits to rapidly move water away from the production landscape into downstream receiving waters. Research has begun to show that vegetated drainage ditches have the ability to reduce nonpoint source concentrations and loads of various contaminants associated with agriculture (i.e. nutrients, sediments, and agro-chemicals). Early research evaluated the mitigation of pyrethroid insecticides lambda-cyhalothrin, bifenthrin, esfenvalerate, and the triazine herbicide atrazine in artificially created d
rainage ditches. Recent studies have examined vegetated drainage ditch in the field, and evaluated their ability to mitigate nutrient loads from cotton fields during the growing and dormant seasons. At present, vegetated agricultural drainage ditches are being implemented in California for eventual inclusion as an EQIP approved management practice. Cutting edge research is examining the congruent utilization of drainage management structures (an adaption to the vegetated drainage ditch) to increase contaminant mitigation whilst potentially providing a subsidiary production benefit through water conservation. The management and establishment of functioning vegetated agricultural drainage ditches achieves water quality pollutant reduction benefits for downstream receiving waters and provides managers with an innovative best management practice.

Andrea Carlson - Shannon & Wilson, Inc.

Movement of Trichloroethylene in a Discontinuous Permafrost Zone

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the migration pathway of a trichloroethylene (TCE) groundwater plume and the distribution of the discontinuous permafrost at a site in Fairbanks, Alaska. Using GIS, I conducted a geostatistical analysis of field data collected during soil-boring installations and groundwater monitoring well sampling. With the analysis results I constructed thematic maps of the permafrost-table elevation and of the groundwater gradients and contaminant concentrations from groundwater sampling events in 2004, 2006, and 2007. The plume concentrations and groundwater gradients were overlain on the permafrost map to correlate permafrost locations with groundwater movement and the spatial distribution of contaminants moving with groundwater. Correlation of the overlay maps established the following trends: 1) converging and diverging groundwater flow pathlines in response to the permafrost-table distribution, 2) non-detect con
centrations in areas with a high permafrost-table elevation, 3) channeling of contaminants and water through areas of permafrost, and 4) upward vertical gradients recharging groundwater from the subpermafrost into the suprapermafrost through a discontinuity. The research indicates that the variable distribution of the permafrost is affecting the way that groundwater and TCE move through the aquifer.

Session 4A - 3:45 P.M. - 4:15 P.M., (Concurrent Session - Room)

Perry Gooch - Global Organics LLC

An examination of ecological soil management practices, which can be implemented to mitigate the agricultural chemical pollution of ground and terrestrial waters

Over the past decade environmental research has shown that we are developing Dead Zones in the oceans off our coasts where no life, animal or plant, can survive. There are now over 400 dead zones around the world. The number and size of these zones are growing larger each year. One of the largest is in the Gulf of Mexico, and it has been forecast that this dead zone will cover over 14,000 square miles by the summer of 2008. In addition to dead zones in the oceans, research has found that over sixty percent of the ground water we use for drinking around the world has been reported to contain nitrates, phosphates and other toxic compounds from the leaching of agricultural chemicals. The thing that is most disturbing about these major environmental problems is that they can be greatly mitigated through the application of various sustainable agricultural practices. This paper will show how ten sustainable-organic programs can be implemented to return conventional, chemical laden soils back to fertility and how these changes will dramatically reduce leaching and chemical runoff. It will show how poor agriculture soils can be returned to near their virgin state of fertility through the implementation of sound soil management practices. These sustainable programs and practices are going to be essential to the survival of our planet. The interesting thing is that these changes will come either voluntarily or if not voluntarily, they will come through government mandates, which have already started in several countries. An interesting aspect of these environmental agriculture practices is that as they reduce chemical leaching and runoff, they also produce yields that are equal to or higher than the chemically treated soils and they produce higher quality crops.

Femi Kennedy Giwa - Lagos State Emergency Management Agency

Effect of Textile Effluent on Ibeshe/offin River

Sustainable development hinges on the tripod of economic, social,and environmental development.The neglect of environmental considerations in industrial development and planning in Nigeria is the bane of unsustanable industialisation translating into degradation of water quality and endangering lives and causing social-economic inbalance.According to the World Bank Report"Towards The Development of an Environmental Action Plan for Nigeria",degradation of water quality has the highest potential for future negative impact on Nigeria's GDP(ESTIMATED AT US1 BILLION DOLLARS)and puts 40 million people at risk.

The Textile Manufacturing Industry in Lagos State contribute to the pollution of the aquatic ecosystem in the State and this sector is ranked number one(1)polluter amongst the list of industries in the state .

The coastal region of the State is objectionably affected with evidence of indiscriminate dredging at coastal region and destruction of bio-life via discharge of untreated effluents, sewages and improper disposal of soild wastes into surface water and other water bodies .

Trade Effluents of a typical textile industry, United Textile Mill (formerly Nichemtex) discharge was comprehesively analysed and studied (physco-chemical and toxicity) using Tilapia niloticus as a bio-monitoring indicator.

The pH, Total Solid (TS), Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Heavy metal (chromium) were found to be between the ranges of 8-14, 880 - 4963mg/L, 50-230mg/L, 196-813mg/L and 0.02-1.75mg/L respectively,which were at wide variance from regulatory standards of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency(LASEPA) and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency(FEPA) and indeed other similar International Regulatory Standards.

The 96HLC50 for the effluents against Tilapia niloticus Fingerlis was found to be 0.25ml/L (Arithmetic Method) and 0.27 (Probit Method) thus ranking the effluents as being highly toxic (based on the GESAMP ranking of toxic substance with reference to 96HLC50 values).

The Safe Concentration of the effluent on Tilapia Niloticus Fingerlis was found to be 0.075ml/L.

The implication of these results on the aquatic environment and public health as well as suggestions on how these problems will be mitigated will be discussed in this text.

Steve Wilson (presenter), Robert Schreiber, Chris Reimer, & William Cunningham- Illinois State Water Survey; University of Illinois

Framework for the National Groundwater Monitoring Network

Many local, state, and regional entities collect groundwater data for specific purposes or for focused studies, but their methods of collection, frequency of measurement, types of data collected, and analysis methods can vary greatly depending on their needs and study goals. As more regional groundwater issues arise and as data become more and more accessible, the need for comparable data has increased nationwide. The few existing nationwide data networks are sparse and can have significant gaps in areal extent. An effort is underway to address these issues and a framework document has been developed that describes the necessary steps for building a nationwide, cooperative groundwater monitoring network. Over the last two years, a group of over 70 state, federal, regional, academic, and industry groundwater professionals have worked to develop this plan, which is now moving into a pilot testing phase.

The federal Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI) is directed by the Office of Management and Budget to foster collaboration related to water information collection and sharing. The Subcommittee on Ground Water (SOGW) is a subgroup of ACWI that has developed and is encouraging implementation of a long-term, nationwide ground-water quantity and quality monitoring framework. The overall goal is for the national-scale network to provide the data necessary for the planning, management, and development of groundwater supplies to meet current and future water needs, including ecosystem requirements.

ACWI has approved the SOGW's report and its request for moving forward with a piloting phase to test the components of the framework document. An Implementation Work Group has been formed to develop the pilot testing plans. This presentation will provide an overview of the framework document and discuss progress to date. More information about the details of the piloting effort will be provided in a separate presentation at this conference.

Session 4B - 4:30 P.M. - 5:00 P.M., (Concurrent Session - Room)

Patrick Splichal - SES, Inc.

Comprehensive Livestock Environmental Assessment and Nutrient Management Plan - West Project (CLEANmp-West)

This presentation will introduce the CLEANmp-West program which is designed to provide livestock and poultry producers with free environemntal assessment assistance and nutrient management planning. This program is funded by a federal grant and will operate until 2012. This presentaiton will review the program design, the use of Technical Service Providers (TSP), its implementation, and the scope of both its enviroenmental assessments and the nutrient management plans/comprehensive nutrient manageemnt plans. The presentaiton will be designed to educate regulators, local water quality groups and TSPs in the program so that they can become engaged and take advantage of the almost $3,000,000 in producer services that are available. A similar program is available in the eastern half of the country and this program will be briefly addressed as well.

Mimi Wallace - USGS

Temporal Phytoplankton Nutrient-Dependent Growth Responses and Seasonal Zooplankton Grazing Estimates of the Highland Lakes, Colorado River, Central Texas

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) are cooperating on a study to understand plankton trophic dynamics in four reservoirs of the Highland Lakes system on the Colorado River in central Texas. Water was collected monthly for phytoplankton bioassays from 6 sites in Lake Travis (2005?06), and 5 sites in Lakes Inks, LBJ, and Marble Falls (2007?08). These lab-based experiments had four replicates each of controls, nitrogen, phosphorus, and nitrogen + phosphorus additions, and were incubated 5 to 7 days with ambient temperature and light (n=2,400). Daily in-vivo fluorescence (IVF), verified by Chl-a, was used to calculate phytoplankton growth rates using an exponential growth model. Results were analyzed using an ANOVA, and post-hoc treatment mean comparisons. Growth rates were lowest in controls and at mid- to up-lake sites, and were highest in nitrogen+phosphorus treatments and at near-dam sites. With all sites and months compared, phytoplankton communities responded to added nitrogen 30%, and to phosphorus 52% of the time.

Bobby Diaz - Ewing Irrigation, Golf & Industrial

Water Quality Products & Services Manager

Water quality and its effects on irrigation systems. How suspended & dissolved solids interfere with irrigation system performance and product effectiveness. What technologies are best suited for the removal of suspended solids from surface water, ground water and recycled water? Some technologies include screen filters, disc filters, sand separators and media tank filters. I will discuss how these technologies work, how best they are applied for the removal of sediment and the pros and cons to each technology. With the correct use of certain technologies to keep water quality high in irrigation systems, not only will systems be more efficient and effective, you will also save water. Water conservation practices include water quality technologies for optimum system performance, especially for recycled water use.