WEFTEC

WEFTEC

WEFTEC is the Water Environment Federation’s annual technical conference.

The Water Environment Federation (WEF) is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization of more than 30,000 individual members and 75 affiliated Member Associations representing water quality professionals around the world. Members are mainly drawn from municipal water companies and contractors working with them with around 85% of members US-based.

Since 1928, WEF and its members (they say) have protected public health and the environment.

WEF and its global network of members and member associations provide water quality professionals around the world with the latest in water quality education, training, and business opportunities.

WEFTEC 2024

The 2024 WEF conference is to be held in New Orleans, October 5 – 9. This is a good venue for a conference (as are Orlando, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and a few others) because if there’s nothing interesting going on in the conference venue, there’s always some place to go or something to do.

Seriously though, often companies use these events to entertain clients and meet with independent sales reps who might live half a continent away, so (in effect) any trade conference of this nature becomes an important venue for networking and customer schmoozing! In the case of WEFTEC, the concept is taken further with professional learning sessions, student facilities, competitions and even a jobs fair.

So, this event serves as a useful annual get-together for many people in the water business who rarely bump into each other at other times of the year. Events of this nature are therefore vitally important in any specialised industry for the exchange of the latest ideas and techniques.

Having it in an interesting place is some recompense for the long hours, lack of sleep and tired feet most delegates suffer from at the end of it!

The 2024 event promises 800+ exhibitors, 120+ technical sessions, 17 interactive workshops and 6 Facility tours and will cater for over 21,000 participants.

Current Wastewater Challenges

The WEF considers that working toward a life free of water challenges requires them to address four major concerns around water: quality, quantity, variability, and accessibility.

This sums up the issues with water worldwide (and not just wastewater either.)

Water quality is falling due to the number of pollutants and ‘synthetised chemicals’ in it. These include PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – the so-called ‘Forever chemicals’ as they do not break down.) Some of the most dangerous of these like endocrine disruptors, only have to be present in very low concentrations to be dangerous.

Global warming has also led to extremes of weather leading to droughts and floods – often in areas that are not geared up for them. This means that at any one time someone has too much water whilst another has not enough. Only by reducing GHGs (greenhouse gases) can we hope to reset this.

Many more people than might be thought have low accessibility to water. Recent (2022) UN figures show:

• 2.2 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water, including 703 million without a basic water service.
• 3.5 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation, including 1.5 billion without basic sanitation services,
• 2 billion lacked a basic hand washing facility, including 653 million with no hand washing facility at all.

PFAS Water Pollution

Under the Biden-Harris administration the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, in their own words, ‘restored scientific integrity’ and accelerated the pace of research into actions needed to protect the public against PFAS.

One of the many standards committed to in April 2024, was a legally enforceable standard for drinking water.

The EPA’s website states: ‘The final rule will reduce PFAS exposure for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses…’

This could have far-reaching implications for the US water industry so it’s likely to be a subject of many conversations in October at the WEF Convention.

Water Treatment in Environmental
Sustainability

PFAS are a wide-ranging group of compounds that are difficult to remove from water using conventional water treatment plant. However, in the last decade, remarkable progress has been made with electrochemical devices and these have been shown to remove many types of PFAS like endocrine disruptors down to below measurable levels.

This is achieved without the addition of hazardous chemicals or by using prodigious amounts of power.

Arvia Wastewater Treatment Innovation

Arvia Technology, a UK-based company, produces a range of electrochemical water treatment systems specifically designed for tertiary management of wastewater.

The company’s Ellenox™ and Rosalox™ systems offer remarkable performance on a wide range of recalcitrant compounds and are designed to be used as part of a treatment chain or in a sidechain to improve the efficiency of other processes.

Units are operational world-wide in a variety of environments including wastewater treatment, battery recycling, offshore aquaculture and many more.

Arvia’s Solution to Tackle PFAS

Arvia is working constantly on new applications for its innovative Ellenox™ and Rosalox™ treatment systems. Many more PFAS treatments are being announced in 2024 and the company is happy to enter into test programs with interested parties.

As WEFTEC takes place in New Orleans, many of the industry’s leading lights will be considering the challenge of PFAS – something that will occupy them for many years to come. So, this year will be pivotal.
But please, if you do attend, remember to get out of the conference center for a couple of hours and enjoy New Orleans too!

Arvia Technology is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of electrochemical industrial water treatment and processing systems. With its HQ, R&D and manufacturing base in Cheshire, UK, it also has facilities in China, India and is expanding into the US.