WEFTEC 2000 blended education, science,
networking and entertainment

By Steve Davey, President, ES&E magazine

Al Goodman (left) presents gavel to incoming WEF President, Joe Stowe, Jr., a popular figure in Canada.	Keynote speaker, Dr. Sylvia Earle.

Perhaps influenced by its close proximity to Hollywood, the opening ceremonies of the WEFTEC 2000 conference and exhibition took on the look of the Academy Awards, complete with upbeat music, a backlit stage, revolving Water Environment Federation (WEF) logos projected onto the ballroom walls, and entertaining speakers.

Keynote speaker, Dr. Sylvia Earle, of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research Marine Operations, gave a first hand account of how important marine life is to the whole ecosystem. She showed photo highlights taken from more than 50 expeditions and 6,000 hours underwater diving.

Emphasizing that overfishing is the major stress factor on marine ecosystems, she gave some startling statistics. In just over four decades, the worldwide tuna population has declined to 20% of what it was. Another bioindicator is the horseshoe crab, which has survived uncounted global calamities over the past 400 million years. Yet in just 40 years, its population has shown a marked decline due to the impact of human activities. Dr. Earle urged people to go diving and see for themselves the wonder and diversity of the marine ecosystem. Only then, she said, will they not just view marine life as food.

The Water Environment Association of Ontario was well represented this year, with members picking up three WEF awards. Geoff Scott, a past president of WEF and WEAO, was made an honorary member.

David Bagley and Toby Brodkorb received the prestigious Harrison Prescott Eddy Medal. The two water quality professionals were honoured for their paper: Modeling Microbial Kinetics in an Anaerobic Sequencing Batch Reactor - Model Development and Experimental Validation, which was published in Water Environment Research.

Their paper presents experimental results and modeling for a relatively new anaerobic treatment process, that has the potential to catalyze more implementation by practitioners of anaerobic batch reactor treatment. The Eddy Medal is awarded for research that makes a vital contribution to existing knowledge of the fundamental principles or process of wastewater treatment, as comprehensively described and published in a WEF periodical. David Bagley is an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto. Toby Brodkorb is a project engineer with CH2M Hill (Toronto).

During its annual meeting, the WEF Board of Directors voted, after considerable debate, to go with a two-city rotation beginning in 2010. Chicago and New Orleans will be the only two host cities after that date. The Board also approved the 2001 budget of $18,552,600 (US) prepared by WEF Treasurer Prad Kharé, from British Columbia.

This article was abridged from Environmental Science & Engineering magazine, which also contains many more articles not posted on our Web Site. See our home page on how to order your subscription. We regret we can only accept orders from Canada and the United States.