Municipal Water Leader May 2022

Volume 9 Issue 5

May 2022

Assistant Secretary Mike Connor: Deploying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works Program

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Assistant Secretary Mike Connor: Deploying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works Program

Municipal Water Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by an American company established in 2009.

Jeff Kightlinger Contributing Editor jeff.kightlinger@municipalwaterleader.com

STAFF:

Contents May 2022 Volume 9, Issue 5

5 I ntroducing Assistant Secretary Mike Connor

By Kris Polly 6 Assistant

Secretary Mike Connor: Deploying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works Program

24 A &W Coatings: Treating and Rehabbing Manholes With Minimal Disruption 32 C raig Beckman of Aqua Membranes: Improving Membrane Filtration With 3-D Printing 38 JOB LISTINGS

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2021 Water Strategies LLC. Municipal Water Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Municipal Water Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Municipal Water Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty

by Water Strategies LLC or Municipal Water Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

4 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

SUBMISSIONS:

Municipal Water Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions; the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or municipal.water.leader@waterstrategies.com.

ADVERTISING:

Municipal Water Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com or Tom Wacker at tom.wacker@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION:

Municipal Water Leader is distributed to all drinking water and wastewater entities with annual budgets or sales of $10 million per year or greater as well as to members of Congress and committee staff and advertising sponsors.

For address corrections or additions, or if you would prefer to receive Municipal Water Leader in electronic form, please contact us at admin@waterstrategies.com. municipalwaterleader.com /MuniWaterLeader

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COVER PHOTO:

Mike Connor, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works.

municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR CIVIL WORKS.

14 S teve Stockton: An Insider’s Guide to Working With the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

20 G uaranteeing DroughtResilient Water Supplies at Eastern Municipal Water District

Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Jeff Kightlinger, Contributing Editor Elaine Robbins, Copyeditor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Tom Wacker, Advertising Coordinator Cassandra Leonard, Staff Assistant Eve Giordano, Media Assistant William Polly, Media Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Assistant Amanda Schulz, Media Assistant

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Introducing Assistant Secretary Mike Connor

By Kris Polly

M

ike Connor, the new assistant secretary of the army for civil works, brings impressive experience to his position. In addition to experience working for private industry, federal agencies, and the United States Senate, he has served as the deputy secretary of the interior and as the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation—making him the first person to have served both as commissioner of Reclamation and as assistant secretary of the army for civil works. In our cover interview, Assistant Secretary Connor tells us about how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is using funds from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to make new investments across the nation.

Getting federal funding for a local water project through a Water Resources Development Act or another Army Corps process is a daunting prospect. We speak with retired Army Corps Director of Civil Works and Water Strategies Senior Advisor Steve Stockton to learn more about the best ways for municipalities and local agencies to seek federal authorization and funding for their initiatives.

Meeting the water needs of a growing area of droughtstricken Southern California is no easy prospect, but Eastern Municipal Water District is taking the task in hand. Assistant General Manager Lanaya Voelz Alexander explains how, with proactive investments in local water supplies and water use efficiency measures, the district is positioning itself to guarantee

“

safe and reliable water service decades into the future.

When the City of Boulder, Colorado, needed to relocate and rehabilitate a section of its sewer system, A&W Coatings applied its environmentally safe epoxy to rehabilitate existing structures and protect new ones.

Project Engineer Hunter Sansone tells us about how A&W completed the job while minimizing disturbance to the city, its bikers, and local wildlife.

Finally, we speak with Craig Beckman, the CEO of Aqua Membranes, about how his company is improving reverse osmosis membrane performance by using 3‑D printing technology to replace plastic feed mesh with dimensional forms printed directly on the membrane surface.

With a new infusion of infrastructure spending by the federal government, there are many opportunities to advance water supply and efficiency projects across the nation. I hope this issue of Municipal Water Leader gives you ideas about the projects you’d like to pursue and how to do it. M Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He can be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Assistant Secretary Mike Connor: Deploying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works Program

Assistant Secretary Connor on a 2022 visit to the Port of Baltimore, which has been reusing the dredged material that it generates to rebuild an ecosystem on Poplar Island. The port recently requested additional dredging to allow it to accept larger ships.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Assistant Secretary Connor: I am a chemical engineer by training. I started my career at General Electric, where I worked in manufacturing and power generation. I was tired of the lawyers always telling me what to do, so I went back

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to law school at the University of Colorado and studied environmental law. I started my government career with the U.S. Department of the Interior, where I served in the solicitor’s office and directed the Indian Water Rights Office. After that, I served as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

There, I led the Water and Power Subcommittee, oversaw the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey, and worked on a lot of Native American issues, which I always had an interest in, being a tribal member myself. Then, at the start of the Obama administration, I was asked by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to run Reclamation, and I led the agency’s mission to manage, develop, and protect water and related resources. Later in the Obama administration, I served as the deputy secretary of the interior, where I was the chief operating officer.

During my tenure at Interior, I worked closely with the Army Corps, coordinating operations, working together municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR CIVIL WORKS.

W

ith a new infusion of funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, officially known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is putting boots on the ground to complete a backlog of projects and make new investments in everything from improving the nation’s ports and inland waterways to making communities more resilient to climate change. In this interview, Municipal Water Leader speaks with Mike Connor, the new assistant secretary of the army for civil works, about implementing these and other top priorities.

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Assistant Secretary Connor (at right) visits the Everglades Agricultural Area. A massive reservoir is being built to store excess water and clean it of excess nutrients before feeding it into the Everglades to support the river of grass. The Army Corps is constructing the storage component of the project.

on risk-management strategies, and trying to integrate the effects that climate change was having on water resources into our operations. Prior to my confirmation as assistant secretary of the army for civil works, I worked in private practice for the first time in my career as a partner at the WilmerHale law firm. My portfolio included natural resources, renewable energy development, environmental compliance, and Native American law.

Municipal Water Leader: Would you give us a brief introduction to the Army Corps?

Assistant Secretary Connor: The Office of Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works establishes policy direction for and supervises U.S. Department of the Army functions relating to all aspects of the Army Corps’ civil works program. The Army Corps is a nationwide water resource manager involved historically in flood-control risk management. We are also responsible for coastal protection, aquatic ecosystem restoration, and hydropower operations involved in water supply. The Army Corps is perhaps most visible in managing the water resources regulatory programs under the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act. The Army Corps maintains the nation’s ports and harbors as well as our channels, locks, dams, and other facilities.

Navigation was the Army Corps’ earliest civil works mission.

Today, the Army Corps supports the nation’s supply chain by maintaining our ability to ship cargo and move goods, both along the coast and inland. municipalwaterleader.com

Municipal Water Leader: Would you describe your role as assistant secretary of the army for civil works?

Assistant Secretary Connor: My primary role as the assistant secretary is to develop and implement policy and allocate resources to execute programs in the key mission areas that I just mentioned. I serve as the principal advisor to the secretary of the army on all matters related to the army civil works program. Civil Works is responsible for the conservation and development of the nation’s water and wetland resources, flood control, navigation, and shore protection, all of which are important aspects of the president’s climate resilience priorities.

Municipal Water Leader: What are the top issues and priorities for the Army Corps today?

Assistant Secretary Connor: I see the role of the Army Corps as implementing and supporting the administration’s priorities.

One of the things that President Biden has highlighted is economic recovery and growth. As I mentioned, the Army Corps plays a key role in supporting economic activity and commerce in this country—maintaining navigable waterways and maintaining our capacity to get ships in and out of our ports. That focus is going to continue to be a priority.

The administration is also committed to climate resilience and adaptation, and the Army Corps plays a central role in implementing related policies. We do flood and coastal risk management to deal with the growing risks to our river and coastal communities posed by extreme weather events, rising May 2022 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Assistant Secretary Connor visits the Río Puerto Nuevo Flood Risk Management Project in Puerto Rico in March 2022.

sea levels, and increased storm surges. The Army Corps also plays a role in addressing another issue related to climate change, namely our increasingly longer and deeper droughts.

Since 1981, the Army Corps has published drought contingency plans for each water resource project or system of projects that has controlled reservoir storage. These plans anticipate the effects of climate change on the frequency, duration, and spatial extent of drought in the United States and incorporate new technologies and drought monitoring methods to support sustainable water management.

Another administration priority is working on environmental justice and lifting up communities that have historically been marginalized. When you look at our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law investments, we chose a lot of projects that directly benefit historically disadvantaged communities, including tribes and communities that are lower on the economic scale.

We also have to continue to strengthen and build our workforce. With the investments that Congress is providing to carry out this work, we’re doing a lot of hiring. We always want to be focused on executing our responsibilities as efficiently and as innovatively as possible.

Municipal Water Leader: You touched on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. What is the Army Corps’ plan for getting that infrastructure money out the door?

Assistant Secretary Connor visits the Río de la Plata Flood Risk Management Project in Puerto Rico in March 2022.

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municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR CIVIL WORKS.

Assistant Secretary Connor visits the Rio Nigua de Salinas Flood Risk Management Project in Puerto Rico in March 2022. Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding will support constructing flood risk management protection for thousands of people affected by increasingly dangerous storm flooding.

Assistant Secretary Connor: Congress gave a tight deadline when the infrastructure bill passed in November 2021. We had 60 days to develop a work plan for the initial fiscal year 2022 investments.

We made the first round of selections to get that money out the door for fiscal year 2022, incorporating the priorities I mentioned earlier. We anticipate additional allocations in the near future in addition to the typical budget process.

The infrastructure law has given a great lift to a lot of important administration priorities. We were able to invest in some projects that were hard to move forward because of the significant funding need, such as reinvestments and the building of new capacity in our inland waterway system, important work within the nation’s ports, and the restoration of aquatic ecosystems. The ability to invest $1.1 billion in the Everglades restoration program is significant. We’re also doing some innovative work in the Chesapeake Bay—rebuilding and restoring island habitat using dredged material. And we’re doing some work to protect tribal lands from coastal erosion and enhance cultural resources. It’s an impressive set of investments across the board. Right now, we’re making decisions, announcing them, and moving forward with on-the-ground work to finalize designs and move into construction. We’re also advancing construction for projects that are already underway, such as work on the Soo Locks in Michigan, an incredibly important facility for delivering iron ore and steel in the Great Lakes region. Leading the decisionmaking process for the Bipartisan Infrastructure

ADVERTISEMENT Law investments is the most significant item I’ve spent my time on during my first several months in office.

Municipal Water Leader: If people have projects that might benefit from some of these funds, what is the best way for them to communicate their needs to the Army Corps?

Assistant Secretary Connor: From an investment standpoint, we don’t have to think long and hard about where the needs are across the nation. Coming into this, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $17.1 billion to the Army Corps.

The Army Corps has a backlog of about $100 billion worth of authorized projects and activities. Not all of them are current, but there’s a long line of worthy projects that have been authorized by Congress, projects for which communities have gathered the local resources needed to meet the costshare requirements. That’s really been the focus of most of the construction activities—trying to complete several of those long-authorized projects and pushing forward those that really highlight the administration’s priorities. Communities have been actively working with us to identify the need for investigations into the new risks driven by climate change.

We’re working on some new strategies to protect our coasts against sea-level rise, including integrating natural and nature-based infrastructure.

Getting back to environmental justice for marginalized communities, we are going to be doing more outreach to tribal communities and others who have not formerly worked with the Army Corps in the past. We plan to have more interactive dialogue about how the Army Corps might help them through programs such as Planning Assistance to States and Floodplain Management Services. We need to look at how we develop projects and how we recommend those projects for approval, because the traditional costbenefit formulas may not adequately capture the full picture of benefits to and effects on local communities.

Municipal Water Leader: Would you comment on the Army Corps’ work in developing the new Waters of the United States rule?

Assistant Secretary Connor: Amid the litigation associated with the Navigable Waters Protection rule, the Army Corps and the public need some level of certainty on how permitting that relates to Waters of the United States will work, so we have gone back to pre-2015 regulations and guidance with updates to incorporate guidance from recent Supreme Court opinions. I think there’s still a need for that, notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court has taken the Sackett case, which is likely to be argued in the fall. We are unlikely to get a decision from the Supreme Court for some time, but we need to continue to operate, to run our regulatory program, and to issue permits.

That weighs in favor of finishing our current rulemaking process. We don’t know what the Supreme Court is going municipalwaterleader.com

to do, and its decision could very well be consistent with a pre-2015 approach. For now, my perspective is that we need to finish our work.

Municipal Water Leader: Given your experience leading Reclamation and your deep familiarity with the agency, do you expect to see an increase in cooperation between the Army Corps and Reclamation?

Assistant Secretary Connor: Absolutely. Given the challenges we face and the effects of climate change, I think it’s essential that we work not just with Reclamation but with state water resource agencies. I think that all of us in the water community—at the federal, state, local, and tribal government levels—have expected some of the changes that we’re seeing with respect to widespread droughts, change in snowpack levels, and more-frequent extreme weather events, but I think the pace of those changes is surprising.

The states are doing a lot of their own development, as are utilities at the local level, and the tribes are getting more sophisticated in how they identify their needs and develop strategies to address them. This whole-of-government approach is not just a good idea that is going to create efficiencies, but it’s critical given the challenges that we now face in managing our water resources. So yes, there will be more interaction and cooperation, because we’ve been moving in that direction for a while, and I think the demands on the landscape now require it.

Municipal Water Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Assistant Secretary Connor: My vision for the future is driven by a sense of urgency. I’d like the Army Corps, a capable and talented organization, to be innovative in developing new strategies and to build climate resilience to better protect and prepare communities for some of the challenges that they’re facing. We need to take advantage of nature-based infrastructure and figure out how we can bring multiple benefits to our projects so that we’re not just doing flood risk and coastal storm management but are also helping to further environmental restoration and even augment water supply where we can.

I still believe that the Army Corps is the preeminent engineering organization in the country. It has long led efforts that have helped transform the country. We’re in an era where those new challenges are coming at us quickly, and we need to do more of that and pick up the pace. M Mike Connor is the assistant secretary of the army for civil works. His office can be contacted at usarmy.pentagon.hqda-asacw.mbx.asa-cw-reporting@army.mil.

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Steve Stockton: An Insider’s Guide to Working With the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The Bonneville Dam navigation lock.

G

etting a water project included in a Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) or otherwise authorized and funded through a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers process has clear potential benefits for a municipality or water supply agency, but the process can be daunting. With thousands of staff members, numerous local offices, and a national headquarters, the Army Corps is complicated enough, but its actions are also influenced by Congress, the administration, and agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In this interview, retired Army Corps Director of Civil Works Steve Stockton tells Municipal Water Leader readers about how to get water projects funded and authorized.

Steve Stockton: I had an amazing 41‑year career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I was with the Portland District for 20 years, where I worked on projects such as the Applegate Dam, Lost Creek Lake, the Bonneville Second Powerhouse, and the Bonneville Second Navigation Lock.

I helped with the recovery efforts following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. In Portland, I began as an entry-level temporary civil engineer and became the chief of planning and engineering. From there, I went to Washington, DC, as the chief of civil works engineering, then moved to the South Pacific Division regional office in San Francisco for 7 years. In 2004, I spent 7 months in Iraq as director of regional business, overseeing the reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructure. I returned to Washington, DC, as

14 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

Municipal Water Leader: Would you briefly describe the mission of the Army Corps?

Steve Stockton: The Army Corps’ civil works program has three principal missions: flood-risk reduction, navigation, and aquatic ecosystem restoration. Since the Army Corps manages 700 dams and thousands of miles of levees and waterways, it also gets into other associated mission areas, such as fish and wildlife enhancement, recreation, and hydropower. The Army Corps also supports the Federal Emergency Management Agency in disaster preparedness and response and administers the Clean Water Act permitting program. Water supply is also a mission, but it’s not one of the three primary missions.

Municipal Water Leader: The Army Corps’ primary interaction with Congress comes through WRDA legislation. If someone were interested in getting a project included in a water bill, how would they start that process, and how can they be successful?

Steve Stockton: I could write a book about that. Basically, you identify a water resource need and contact your local Army Corps district office as a nonfederal sponsor to determine whether the Army Corps has authority to meet municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO BY THE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PORTLAND DISTRICT, LICENSED UNDER CC BY 2.0.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background in the Army Corps.

the director of civil works in 2005, just 2 months before Hurricane Katrina hit. I served as director of civil works for 11 years and was responsible for oversight of a multibilliondollar program.

PHOTO BY BILL JOHNSON, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PORTLAND DISTRICT, PUBLIC DOMAIN.

ADVERTISEMENT that need. In 1986, the Army Corps went from a system Municipal Water Leader: How do you get decisionmakers in under which its projects were 100 percent federally funded both the executive and legislative branches to buy into the to a system under which costs were shared. There are idea that your project responds to a legitimate need? different cost-share percentages—for example, flood-risk reduction is 65 percent federally and 35 percent nonfederally Steve Stockton: It helps to have a good relationship with funded, but the nonfederal sponsors are responsible for your local Army Corps district office and to make periodic providing lands, easements, rights of way, relocations, and trips to Washington to talk to Army Corps headquarters, disposal areas. Once the project is complete, the nonfederal the ASA(CW) office, and OMB to let them know that sponsor is responsible for the operation, maintenance, rehab, you’re still interested in the project so that it doesn’t repair, and replacement of the project. However, the Army lie there dormant. Sometimes, the door opens after an Corps also has thousands of legacy projects for which it event like Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy, and maintains operations and maintenance responsibilities.

Congress suddenly decides to fund previously authorized To get an Army Corps study started, you first identify a projects. After Hurricane Sandy, many authorized-butneed, such as aquatic ecosystem restoration, flood risk, or navigation. Almost every project needs a nonfederal sponsor. Then, you prepare a letter to the local Army Corps district stating your interest in pursuing a feasibility study. The Army Corps district will propose the study to the division and headquarters during its annual appropriations process and at the biannual authorization process, when studies and projects are authorized and funds are appropriated. This is a competitive process, as there are limits on how many studies can be funded.

Once a feasibility study has been completed, it is submitted to Congress for authorization. Once it’s authorized, you need to get funding through the appropriations process, which is not easy. It’s fairly straightforward to get an authorization, but This sediment retention structure on the North Fork of the Toutle River was completed in 1989 by the Army Corps to retain sediment flowing down from the slopes of it’s much harder to get funding, because you’ve Mount St. Helens. The structure is approximately 22 miles upriver of Castle Rock, Washington. got to work through the administration, the Army Corps headquarters, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works (ASA[CW]), unfunded projects received funding through an emergency and OMB. There is lots of competition for dollars during supplemental. While this may sound cynical, if you go the appropriations process. The authorizers are willing to through the regular process, a lot of projects will never get consider any worthwhile project and authorize it, but OMB funded, but after a disaster, money flows much more freely. has strict criteria for including projects in the president’s The argument we used with OMB was, “You can pay us budget. Typically, OMB wants a benefit-cost ratio of 2.5:1 at a now to prevent future damages, or you can pay us later, after 7 percent discount rate, which is hard to achieve. That said, if the damages have occurred.” there are life safety considerations, you can make the case more The recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs easily. All projects must have a minimum benefit-cost ratio of Act and the regular and supplemental appropriations for fiscal 1, because you don’t want to pay more for a project than you’ll year 2022 will appropriate billions for Army Corps projects, gain in economic benefits on the back end. programs, and activities. When these large amounts are At one point, Congress got upset with the Army Corps appropriated, Congress often doesn’t have the time to specify because we kept going around telling everybody that we which projects the funds should be used for, so it asks the had a $100 billion backlog of authorized projects, and in Army Corps to prepare a work plan or a spend plan to tell it 2014, Congress instituted its own deauthorization process to how the Army Corps is going to spend all this money. reduce that backlog. Since then, Congress has relaxed that Currently, the Army Corps has around $80 billion in approach, because it came under pressure from nonfederal civil works money. It is a challenge to manage that amount sponsors who wanted their projects to remain authorized so of work and hire enough people quickly enough, so the they could continue to compete for funding.

Army Corps relies heavily on architect-engineer firms and municipalwaterleader.com

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ADVERTISEMENT construction contractors. As much as 99 percent of the construction work is done by contractors. The Army Corps is responsible for construction management, oversight, and quality assurance, but most of those responsibilities are turned over to private-sector contractors.

Municipal Water Leader: How important is it to have a relationship with your local Army Corps office? If people do not have an existing relationship, how would you recommend they establish one?

Steve Stockton: It’s important that you engage both as an individual sponsor and as part of an industry group, such as the National Water Resources Association, the National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies, the Association of State Floodplain Managers, the Waterways Council, or the National Waterways Conference.

Through these industry groups, you can pull in Army Corps leaders at both the district and headquarters levels and ask them to address the things that might impede the funding process. There is strength in numbers.

Steve Stockton: Yes. During the budget process, every Army Corps district prepares justification sheets for its projects. Those are submitted through the division office to the program’s business line manager at headquarters, who then applies criteria and establishes a cutline. Then, headquarters proposes the budget to the ASA(CW) office, where political priorities are applied, and then it goes to OMB, which has to sign off on it as well.

Some 80 percent of the decisions are based on objective criteria only, while about 20 percent are influenced by political considerations, such as advancing the agenda of the president or a specific congressman or senator. I’m not saying there’s anything untoward going on; I’m just saying that it was much harder for the Appropriations Subcommittee chairs to advance projects in the absence of earmarks. Now that they can have congressionally directed funding or community project funding (earmarks), appropriations chairs have more leverage to keep membership in line. It is also important to remember that there are 38 civil works districts in the United States, and each one has its own personality.

Municipal Water Leader: You mentioned that the Army Corps’ decisionmaking process is often influenced by entities such as Congress or OMB. If folks want to engage with the Army Corps, should they familiarize themselves with with OMB as well?

Municipal Water Leader: The Army Corps has some input into the proposed change to the definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS). If people want to express their opinion about this issue, would you recommend that they reach out to their local Army Corps district?

Applegate Dam on the Applegate River in Jackson County, Oregon. The dam, located in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, impounds Applegate Lake.

Moreover, the nonfederal sponsor and the local Army Corps district need to act as a team. If they are at odds with one another, the project is not going to go anywhere. Many nonfederal sponsors are sophisticated; sometimes, they know more about the Army Corps processes than the Army Corps does. It’s better to have a long-term relationship than to try to do a one-off project.

Municipal Water Leader: Is it accurate to say that if the Army Corps headquarters in Washington, DC, hears about concerns in local areas, it will reach out to the local office?

16 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

Steve Stockton: That is a conversation that will happen in DC at the Army Corps headquarters and the ASA(CW) office.

Local Army Corps districts aren’t going to have much influence on the outcome. The local districts must execute the WOTUS rules, whatever they are. The question is going through another Supreme Court test now. This administration is trying to come up with a durable rule, one that doesn’t keep flip-flopping back and forth. I went through the whole process at the tail end of the municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO BY BILL JOHNSON, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PORTLAND DISTRICT, PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Steve Stockton: It depends. OMB has a bandwidth problem. There are only a few people in the Water and Power Branch, and it’s difficult to get on their agendas because they apply narrow, stringent criteria. There’s not much flexibility there. If I were doing advocacy work, I’d work with the local Army Corps district, Army Corps headquarters, industry groups, and my congressional delegation.

ADVERTISEMENT Obama administration, and it’s messy. There are a lot of conflicts between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps. I always felt bad for the GS-11-level regulators who had to make jurisdictional determinations when not even the Supreme Court would provide clear guidance and direction.

Given the issue’s complexity, I think the Army Corps tries to stay as apolitical as possible.

Municipal Water Leader: Based on your experience at both the local and leadership levels, what traits would you say you have seen in projects that move forward in the process and find success?

Steve Stockton: I think projects that are straightforward and policy compliant have the best chance of success. Any time I see somebody trying to get creative, I have doubts about their chances. You may not like the rules, but the more policy compliant you are, the better your odds.

Municipal Water Leader: Do you anticipate that the Army Corps will help address the long-term effects of drought?

Steve Stockton: Exceptional drought is not an Army Corps mission. This is really within the Bureau of Reclamation’s and the states’ purviews. That said, if the Army Corps is directed by Congress to work on the issue, it will execute.

Municipal Water Leader: It is 2022, and there are still provisions from WRDA 2020 for which implementation guidance has not been developed. What recommendations do you have on how to speed that along?

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE STOCKTON.

Steve Stockton: Army Corps headquarters will list all the WRDA provisions to figure out which ones need implementation guidance. If the language is clear enough, they don’t need implementation guidance. If a districtspecific provision does need implementation guidance, the district will prepare a draft, send it to headquarters, and then coordinate with the ASA(CW) office. Most of the policy provisions that require guidance are ones that are based on all the previous policy provisions—all the prior WRDAs, flood control acts, and navigation acts. There is a bandwidth problem in the Army Corps headquarters when it comes to providing implementation guidance: The Army Corps headquarters is still largely working virtually, and it is difficult to do this type of coordination in virtual environments.

Municipal Water Leader: It sounds like your recommendations are first, to identify your need within the context of the Army Corps’ mission areas; second, to get to know employees at your local district office and talk to your members of Congress and contacts at Army Corps headquarters; third, to build coalitions and join industry groups or regional organizations; and fourth, to take a long view. municipalwaterleader.com

Steve Stockton: I think those are fair recommendations. I think the most important thing is to remember that while the Army Corps has a lot of capabilities on the civil, military, and research and development sides, it can’t solve all water resource problems. For instance, it doesn’t have authority to fix nonfederal dams. That’s where people get frustrated. Don’t pursue projects that fall outside the Army Corps’ mission areas and authorities. If projects are policy noncompliant, they are not likely to get authorized or funded.

Municipal Water Leader: Would you tell us about publicprivate partnerships (PPPs), the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA), and other new tools the Army Corps is using?

Steve Stockton: After realizing that there would never be enough federal appropriations to meet all the demands, we did a lot of work trying to develop PPPs and ended up setting up a hybrid PPP for the Fargo-Moorhead Area Diversion Project. So much of what the Army Corps does is based on legacy rules, regulations, and processes, and this was something different, so we made some inroads.

WIFIA is basically a loan guarantee program, and administering it requires a complete administrative infrastructure. The Army Corps is going to piggyback on what the EPA does and rely on the EPA to administer the program. I think there’s an appetite within the Army Corps to have alternate financing tools in its toolbox, but without a lot of money behind it, I’m not sure how effective it can be.

One of the interesting things I’m doing now is working down in Brazil with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance. We are working with Brazil’s Ministry of Regional Development to figure out what funds are available for water, sewer, sanitation, and waste disposal projects and to link up municipalities with banks and funding sources.

You have to do prefeasibility studies and have somebody structure the agreement; then, you put them out for concessions. It’s really a financial deal. The Army Corps doesn’t have a lot of financial dealmaking expertise. It is more focused on the technical side of construction. I think financial dealmaking is a skill set the Army Corps needs to further develop. M

Steve Stockton is a private water resources consultant, a senior advisor at Water Strategies, and the president of Stockton Global Strategies LLC. He can be reached at the Water Strategies office at (202) 698-0690, at steve@stocktongs.com, or at (571) 645‑1666.

May 2022 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Guaranteeing Drought-Resilient Water Supplies at Eastern Municipal Water District

EMWD's Mountain Avenue West Groundwater Replenishment Facility, located in San Jacinto, was completed in 2021. It will store water imported from Northern California during wet or normal years in local aquifers for use during normal or dry years.

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20 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

Municipal Water Leader: Please discuss your background and how you came to be in your current position at EMWD. Lanaya Voelz Alexander: I graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in environmental engineering and subsequently became a licensed civil engineer. I have been working in the water industry in Southern California for over 20 years. For the first 20 years, I was in the private sector, where I worked for a global engineering and construction firm. I supported a variety of water resource programs throughout Southern California. I gained experience in many of the same services EMWD provides, including recycled water, desalination, water resource management, and more. I also managed projects and programs through their complete life cycles, and I really think that has given me a unique ability to serve here at EWMD. municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EMWD.

astern Municipal Water District (EMWD) in Southern California has long been at the forefront of meeting the needs of a rapidly growing service area, thanks to proactive investments in water use efficiency and local water supply sources. With drought conditions again taking a stranglehold on California’s water supplies, EMWD has positioned itself to provide its customers with safe and reliable services while also supporting a culture of water use efficiency among the nearly 1 million customers in its service area. In this interview, we speak with Lanaya Voelz Alexander, EMWD’s assistant general manager for planning, engineering, and construction, about the steps the district has taken to invest in local water supplies, its efforts to become less vulnerable to drought conditions, and its new programs designed to assist customers who are seeking ways to become more efficient.

ADVERTISEMENT I joined EMWD 3 years ago as the senior director of water resources. I oversaw water supply planning, conservation, groundwater management, and the environmental and regulatory compliance teams. In that capacity, I had the benefit of contributing to all EMWD projects and initiatives.

This involvement began early on, when a project was identified as needed for facilities or water supply planning, continued through the planning studies, and included overseeing the compliance of completed projects. This experience, combined with my prior experience in the private sector, provided me with a proficiency in the various aspects of planning, engineering and construction that are required in my current position at EMWD.

water in our basins for use in dry years. We currently use all our recycled water, and our planned Purified Water Replenishment program will take our recycled water initiatives to the next level by taking that recycled water, which is already cleaned for nonpotable uses, and further treating it to replenish our groundwater basins to maintain the sustainability of our local supply. We are also expanding our groundwater desalination program, which allows us to use a supply that is otherwise nonpotable and also protects portions of our basin from the salinity effects of migrating water. All of these programs are important to protect our local water supply not just now but in the future as well.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about EMWD’s history and current services.

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: EMWD was established in 1950 and is a full-service provider of water, wastewater, and recycled water services for both wholesale and retail customers. We are located in western Riverside County, California, and have a 558‑square-mile service area in which we serve nearly 1 million residents. One of the things that distinguish EMWD from other water suppliers is that we are only 38 percent built out. That means our water supply challenges are different from those of more-built-out agencies. We not only need to plan for a sustainable water supply for our existing area, but we have to plan to provide for future generations as our service area continues to grow.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the makeup of your water supply and how vulnerable each source is to drought.

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: I think to really frame this answer, I want to start out by saying that EMWD has made significant investments over the past 20 years to increase our water supply’s reliability in the face of drought conditions.

Back in 1990, EMWD relied on imported water from the State Water Project and the Colorado River Aqueduct for more than 65 percent of our total water supplies. Those two supplies, imported from hundreds of miles away, are vulnerable to hydrological conditions. They are dependent on rain and snowpack in their respective watersheds every year. Today, despite our population having doubled, our reliance on imported water has decreased to just under 50 percent.

The other half of our portfolio is local supplies that we have much more control over. Having half our supplies managed locally does reduce our vulnerability during droughts. Our local water supplies include groundwater, desalinated groundwater, and recycled water. All of these are components of our Groundwater Reliability Plus program, which is a comprehensive program focused on managing our local water supplies. We have the opportunity to bank municipalwaterleader.com

EMWD’s under-construction Perris II Desalination Facility in Menifee will help it further expand its use of groundwater throughout its service area.

Another aspect of our portfolio is our water use efficiency programs. EMWD was a leader in establishing tiered rates based on a customer’s individual needs. We are able to promote water use efficiency through the fair premise that those who use more pay more and those who use less pay less.

Municipal Water Leader: What is the difference between drought mitigation planning and water conservation planning?

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: I think of them as complementary.

When I think of drought mitigation, I think of how to reduce vulnerability during a drought. But part of that is using less all the time. The important part of being prepared is planning— being proactive in preparing for water supply challenges instead of being reactive. It is important to develop strategies that allow us to store water when it is available, such as our water banking program; to maximize the use of droughtMay 2022 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT proof supplies like recycled water; and to invest in our water use efficiency programs. They are all complementary actions that EMWD has been employing for many years.

Municipal Water Leader: How is the ongoing drought in California affecting your water supply?

have seen a high level of interest and participation in the program and have had over 600 application submissions since the program’s launch in July 2021. We have also had 65 contractors sign up for the contractor training program, which provides information on how they can help customers understand the benefits of a water efficient landscape.

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: At EMWD, our customers have maintained the water saving measures established during the previous drought and responded to the continuing voluntary water use reductions. We are simply asking most of our customers to be aware and to continue doing what they have been doing since the last drought.

EMWD did respond to the regional and state requests for conservation by implementing the next stage of our water shortage contingency plan, which asks customers who are using more than their budget to reduce water waste. We ask that they not refill swimming pools, that they make timely repairs to leaks, and that they be cognizant of the types of landscaping they are installing so that they are consistent with the efficiency standards for outdoor water use. We are focusing on some customers who have the opportunity to reduce waste and doing extra outreach to them to assist them to do so.

Municipal Water Leader: In addition to diversifying water supply and encouraging water efficiency and conservation among your users, what other approaches is the district taking to address ongoing and cyclical drought conditions?

Municipal Water Leader: How are you educating and helping your customers during the ongoing drought?

Municipal Water Leader: EMWD is only 38 percent built out. What is the district doing to ensure it can meet the increase in demand expected in the coming generation?

22 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: First and foremost, we have to continue to embrace efficient water use behavior. One of the things EMWD adopted several years ago is a more stringent tiered-rate structure for new development. This sets expectations that new development be more efficient than existing development, both indoors and outdoors. We also have to continue to protect and further develop our local water supplies and embrace technology as we see new opportunities for new water supplies. Our Purified Water Replenishment program is a great example of this, as it will take recycled water and treat it with advanced treatment processes to recharge our groundwater basins. We have to continue to maximize our drought-proof resources and capitalize on technologies as they become available while continuing to promote the efficient behavior that so many of our communities have already embraced. M

Lanaya Voelz Alexander is the assistant general manager for planning, engineering, and construction at Eastern Municipal Water District. For more on EMWD, visit www.emwd.org.

municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF EMWD.

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: EMWD has many longestablished water use efficiency tools that have become part of our everyday life. Our water budgets and tiered rates inherently result in water use efficiency. We have also developed a variety of tools and programs for our customers to help them further embrace their commitment to efficiency. We offer an interactive website that customers can use to participate in rebate programs and that provides them with a variety of tools to help them understand their water use habits. We just completed an upgrade to our billing system that gives customers more information about their real-time water use. Knowledge is power, and a lot of our customers, if they know they can do something more, will do so.

All of these tools and our outreach resonate with customers. In 2021, we also launched our Landscapes for Living program, a comprehensive program that combines a lot of our existing resources and rebates into a one-stop shop on our website. Customers can sign up for rebates on smart controllers, which help with outdoor water use efficiency; apply for rebates for turf removal; and access landscape designs for different lifestyles and recreational opportunities they may want to enjoy in their outdoor spaces while incorporating water efficient landscaping. The program also offers tutorials and landscape-contractor training courses, which expand our reach by making contractors advocates in the community who can provide services. We

Lanaya Voelz Alexander: One of the key aspects is planning and identifying strategies to adapt to changing conditions.

Over the past 5 years, we have experienced conditions that we did not anticipate. Through our long-range planning, we have identified tools and projects that we could quickly implement, which has put us in a strong position. The most important aspect is long-range planning and incorporating adaptive management strategies into those plans. We have to strike the right balance in using our funds in a manner that provides us with a just-in-time approach rather than having stranded assets. We have to identify certain signposts for when we have to take further action.

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A&W Coatings: Treating and Rehabbing Manholes With Minimal Disruption

Surface preparation on one of the manholes rehabilitated by A&W Coatings.

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hen Boulder, Colorado, needed to relocate and rehabilitate a section of its sewer system, A&W Coatings applied its environmentally safe epoxy to rehabilitate existing structures and prevent corrosion in new ones. Municipal Water Leader spoke with Project Engineer Hunter Sansone about how A&W was able to work in a way that caused minimal disturbance—to the city, its bikers, and its other protected residents: black-tailed prairie dogs.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Hunter Sansone: I have been with A&W Coatings as a project engineer for 3 years, traveling from Texas to Massachusetts and finally to the Denver, Colorado, area to work with A&W’s western group. My role encompasses managing projects from inception to completion. Additionally, I am a NACE level 2-certified coatings inspector.

Municipal Water Leader: What types of projects do you generally work on?

24 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the Goose Creek sanitary sewer interceptor system project.

Hunter Sansone: The Goose Creek interceptor project was awarded to Garney Construction, our parent company, in mid-2020. It was a two-part project: a sewer relocation and the rehabilitation of an existing sewer line. A&W’s scope included 16 new 60‑inch-diameter manholes that were installed and coated along the relocated section. On the rehabilitated section, Garney used an ultraviolet cured-inplace pipe lining system to rehabilitate the other section of the Goose Creek interceptor. We then coated the existing manholes with a thicker system of epoxy to completely rehabilitate them. A&W’s rehabilitation scope consisted of 14 existing 48‑inch-diameter manholes.

The project had a complicated bypass, which introduced some complications, specifically related to sequencing.

One of the benefits of the linkage between the Garney and A&W teams is that the communication was seamless. We did a lot of bouncing around on this project, jumping from one manhole to the next across the project site so that we could close strategic portions of bypass to minimize the effects on the community and reduce costs.

Municipal Water Leader: What kind of preparatory work did you do before you started coating?

Hunter Sansone: We started by inspecting each manhole.

Several of the existing manholes were leaking, so we had municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF A&W COATINGS.

Hunter Sansone: We work on all kinds of coatings projects in a variety of markets, including water, wastewater, food and beverage, and power. Most of our work involves coating wastewater structures—manholes, large-diameter pipe, secondary clarifiers, aeration basins, gravity thickeners, and so on. We also coat drinking water structures—typically clear wells, pump stations, and other assets of that nature.

One of the manholes, before and after being treated by A&W Coatings.

ADVERTISEMENT to resolve some inflow and infiltration with hydrophobic injection grout provided by Warren Environmental.

The rehabilitated manholes underwent a water-blasting procedure to remove any loose substrate and return them to solid, clean concrete. A diluted bleach rinse followed this to kill any residual bacteria and bring the pH in the concrete up to or above neutral. After that, we sprayed each manhole with 250 mils (¼ inch) of Warren’s 301‑14 epoxy. The new manholes had yet to be installed when we originally walked the project. After they were installed and passed vacuum testing, we sandblasted each manhole to attain an International Concrete Repair Institute surface profile of 4–5, quickly rinsed them to remove contaminants, and then coated them with 125 mils (1/8 inch) of the same Warren 301‑14 epoxy.

Municipal Water Leader: How was Warren Environmental’s 301‑14 epoxy selected, and how does it compare to other epoxies you might use?

Hunter Sansone: 301‑14 is Warren’s flagship epoxy for wastewater environments. A&W Coatings is Warren Environmental’s master applicator and the training group for its approved applicator network. 301‑14 is unique because it can be sprayed at many different viscosities. This gives it a lot more versatility than some competing products. Since this project involved both new and existing manholes, which had different coating thickness requirements, we used two different viscosities to maintain our single-coat approach.

Municipal Water Leader: Please describe the work process for the Goose Creek project, particularly as it related to limiting disruptions to traffic or to public use of facilities.

Hunter Sansone: Garney handled the bypass routing, responding to the City of Boulder’s requests to minimize effects on bike paths, overpasses, and other recreational areas. There was minimal disruption by design, but that did not eliminate all interaction with the public. A portion of the work occurred on a bike path, with the manholes as close as 8–10 feet to the path itself. We never closed the path for our work. One of the benefits of a spray-in-place liner such as Warren’s epoxy coating system is that our footprint is small—we just need a truck and a trailer—so we’re able to get into tight spaces and work quickly with minimal effects on the public.

Also, an interesting feature of 100‑percent-solids epoxies, and specifically the Warren 301 series products we work with, is that the inhalation hazard to bystanders is eliminated. Some competing products, such as polyureas and polyurethanes, can have a strong odor and release harmful, and even deadly, inhalants. Thus, the ability for everyday life to continue around work sites where those products are used is limited in comparison to the case with an epoxy product, especially a 100‑percent-solids product that contains no solvents, styrenes, isocyanates, and so on. municipalwaterleader.com

Municipal Water Leader: How did you limit this project’s effects on wildlife?

Hunter Sansone: The black-tailed prairie dog resides in the city of Boulder and across Colorado, and the species is protected in certain municipalities, including Boulder.

You’re not allowed to disturb prairie dog nests, and if you do disturb them or are working at a site where they might be disturbed, you must relocate them. We were working very close to their burrows, sometimes within 20–25 feet.

Garney set up a small fence perimeter with the intention of keeping the prairie dogs from crossing into the construction site and us from crossing into their territory. In addition to minimizing disturbances to the public, another advantage of using a product without any odors or harmful solvents is that there was no risk of releasing anything into the air that would disturb the prairie dogs.

Municipal Water Leader: How long do your coatings need to cure after you apply them?

Hunter Sansone: The cure time and the return-to-service time are usually 4–6 hours, depending on the time of year. Most of this project was completed from December to February. For the rehabilitation of the manholes, we used a flow-through bypass procedure, which involves an inflatable plug with a hose running through it. We were able to turn those manholes over at a rate of two to three per day.

Municipal Water Leader: Do you have any advice for other municipalities that might be considering a similar project?

Hunter Sansone: One message we’re always trying to convey is to read the warranty that you’re getting. If the warranty claims process for a typical coating applicator and a coating manufacturer turns into, “He didn’t apply it right,” or “It’s the product’s fault,” the process just becomes a fingerpointing mess. We like to tout the benefits of the fact that A&W and Warren are strongly connected. Where we really shine is in our ability to address anything that might come up in the future without the headache of the blame game.

I’m happy to say that we don’t often have to do warranty work, though, and we recently completed an 18‑year inspection on a manhole in Georgia whose condition was pretty similar to how it looked the day the coating was applied. I’m proud of results like that. M

Hunter Sansone is a project engineer at A&W Coatings. He can be contacted at hsansone@awmain.com.

May 2022 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Craig Beckman of Aqua Membranes: Improving Membrane Filtration With 3-D Printing

Aqua Membranes does away with the need for plastic feed mesh by 3-D printing dimensional forms directly on the membrane surface.

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igh-purity water treatment plants and other industries that use membrane filtration rely on decades-old systems that are subject to reduced output and expensive maintenance.

Aqua Membranes has been working on a new 3‑D-printed spacer technology to solve those issues. Municipal Water Leader spoke with CEO Craig Beckman about applications in which the company’s new technology can keep the water flowing.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Craig Beckman: I’ve been in the water industry for 30 years. I ended up here by mistake. I had gotten a degree in mechanical engineering and assumed I’d be working in the automotive or aerospace fields. But after college, I got a job with a water treatment startup based in Minneapolis called Osmonics, and I’ve been in the water industry ever since. I often tell people that the water industry connects to every industry, because everybody uses water in some form, whether they’re making jet fuel or semiconductors or raising pigs. I have worked both for big corporations like General Electric, specifically in its water business, and for small startups like this one. I joined Aqua Membranes as CEO about 4 years ago.

Municipal Water Leader: Please introduce the company.

32 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | May 2022

(RO) elements with superior performance. An example of one of those companies is Pentair, a water treatment company based in Minneapolis. Pentair does a lot of residential water treatment work and has a line of RO equipment that is used in commercial food service. We’ve been working with the company to decrease the footprint of those machines by increasing the packing density of the RO membranes and increasing the machines’ efficiency as measured by how much water you get out versus how much energy you have to put in. We have also been working with Micron Technologies, a manufacturer of semiconductor memory chips, to reduce the energy required to make the same quality and quantity of water with printed spacer technology. The semiconductor industry uses a lot of water and is under tremendous water stress right now, given the huge demand for chips. Here in the United States, semiconductor chips are made primarily in the Southwest, which is struggling with drought. Internationally, they’re made in parts of China, Taiwan, and Singapore that also are struggling with water scarcity and drought. Last summer, one of our customers in Taiwan was literally trucking water into its facility because the area was in such a bad drought situation.

Municipal Water Leader: How did Aqua Membranes discover and develop its technology?

Craig Beckman: Our founder, Rodney Herrington, came up with the idea based on research he was doing at a different company. He left that company and decided to start his own venture. He thought, “All right, we need to make the membrane element differently if we want to get to the next level of performance.” The problem is that membrane elements last only a year in some applications and maybe 2–3 years in others. After that, they have to be replaced because they municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AQUA MEMBRANES.

Craig Beckman: We are a 10‑year-old company—a typical startup that literally started in somebody’s garage with funding from friends and family. I joined the company and then led the A-series fundraising. In addition to strategic investors, we have partnered with companies that want us to help them improve their water treatment products. Aqua Membranes uses printed spacer technology to develop and produce reverse osmosis

By printing dots, squares, chevrons, and other dimensional forms on a membrane, Aqua Membranes can significantly improve its performance.

ADVERTISEMENT get dirty and fouled and scaled with minerals and suspended solids. This is because the feed spacer material that the industry currently uses—the netting material that lays between each layer of the membrane—acts almost like a snow fence: The snow hits the fence and just gets stuck there. Eventually, you can’t get the solids washed out, and you have to throw all the membranes away. Looking at the $3 billion membrane element business around the world, Mr. Herrington thought that it could be done better, using less energy and less water and sending less plastics into landfills. As an industry, we just had to think about the problem differently.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about how your 3‑D-printed technology works.

Craig Beckman: Basically, what Aqua Membranes has done is reconstructed the way that membrane elements are put together. In the past, there were few choices—pretty much everyone used the same mesh material. We decided to remove the layer of plastic feed mesh and instead print dimensional forms right on the membrane surface. Think of it almost like a Braille surface on top of the membrane.

We’re figuring out a 3‑D-printing technology—we sometimes call it 2½‑D, because we print extensively in the x and y dimensions and only a few millimeters in the z dimension. In a 3‑foot-square area of a membrane element, we might print 30,000 or more individual features, including lines, dots, squares, and chevrons. The pattern we use and the part of the membrane we print on can significantly improve its performance.

Advances in 3‑D printing technology have helped make this possible. You couldn’t do this 30 or 40 years ago because 3‑D printing, the different types of resins, and the curing technologies weren’t yet developed. Even today, it’s difficult.

We’re printing on a very fragile surface, which is one of our biggest challenges: How do we print without damaging the membrane that we’re printing on? It’s very different than printing on a piece of paper.

Municipal Water Leader: Will this new technology cost more?

Craig Beckman: Yes: At this point, there will be a premium on the element up front, and the savings will be on life cycle cost. Customers will capture that premium back in the first year or two of operation.

Municipal Water Leader: How has the company developed since you came on board?

We don’t have enough long-term data yet, but computer modeling shows us that we could significantly improve membrane life and save energy with our technology. That’s what makes us really excited about the technology. We can bring energy savings on day 1 because there is less wasted energy running through our membrane elements. We can also extend the membranes’ life significantly because the pattern is customized and printed in such a way that it doesn’t trap solids.

We’ve only taken a couple of customer orders at this point, but we expect to move into full manufacturing by the end of the year. The supply chain issues that everybody is struggling with have certainly hit us as well. I would say we’re about a year and a half behind where we expected to be in terms of ramping up production. We have a lot of customer demand, which is great, but our problem right now is fulfilling that demand.

Municipal Water Leader: What markets do you serve?

Craig Beckman: We are primarily focusing on the U.S. market at this point for our RO membrane elements.

They are used in everything from homes to seawater desalination plants. We are primarily focusing on a couple of industry niches for now: wastewater reuse and small utility power production. The other products that we envision as part of our multigenerational product plan involve taking the technology to other similar membrane-filtration markets. The biggest markets for this type of technology for spiral-wound RO are seawater desalination, bottled water, food and beverage production, municipal drinking water, and some wastewater recycling. Orange County’s big wastewater recycling plant is a great example of what can be done. It takes about 100 million gallons a day of treated wastewater, runs it through membrane technologies, and then uses it to recharge the aquifer.

Municipal Water Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Craig Beckman: We’re hoping that the world will ramp up its manufacturing capacity, get back to prepandemic levels, and increase production from there. That would be good for us, because a lot of manufacturers use high-purity water. The semiconductor industry, for example, is expanding right now and looking at new technologies as it builds new facilities.

Companies are asking for state-of-the-art water treatment technology. We want to be part of that solution: to bring innovation while helping companies use less energy. M

Craig Beckman: When I came on board, Aqua Membranes was still mostly a research company. Since then, we’ve completed proof of concepts and done some lab testing, and in the last couple of years, we have been the process of bringing more funding into the company and ramping up and commercializing our product.

Craig Beckman is CEO of Aqua Membranes. He can be reached at craig@aquamembranes.com.

municipalwaterleader.com

May 2022 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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