Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - May 2003
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WEF Past President moves audience with sombre global water data

WEF President Jim Clark (centre) with George Powell (CH2M HILL), a WEAO Past-President and his wife Heather Powell.

At the recent Water Environment Association of Ontario Conference in Toronto, the past president of the Water Environment Federation, Jim Clark, P.E., presented some profound global water statistics, noting that this year marks the 75th anniversary of WEF.

As the nature of the water quality business is changing, so must WEF position itself to be responsive to these changes. In the public education area, WEF’s critically acclaimed CD-ROM, called Aqua Venturer, which highlights the crucial role of water and wastewater professionals in the development of civilization, is now available online. This project is funded entirely by private donations.

Since the September 11 attacks on America, both the Bush administration and US Congress have taken steps to coordinate and promote more security of the nation’s infrastructure, including the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security to organize government efforts to protect against terrorism on US soil. WEF, along with the USEPA, has just completed a series of one-day wastewater security training sessions across the United States. The sessions were targeted at utility managers who need to conduct vulnerability assessments of their plants and recommend measures to protect the facility from potential physical and biological attacks.

The EPA has recently agreed to provide additional funding to continue this successful program, which will include eight 2-day hands-on training sessions, two webbased training sessions, and ten “train the trainer” sessions. These sessions will continue through July 2003. Because these sessions are funded by USEPA grants, the sessions are all held in the US. However, the training materials are available to WEF member associations located outside of the US.

Bringing water problems into perspective, Mr. Clark posited: “If the entire volume of this room represented all of the water on earth, and we remove the water that is salt water in the oceans, the volume would shrink to the front of the podium. If we next remove the fresh water that is inaccessible, such as that tied up in glaciers and ice caps, and deep in the ground, the volume shrinks to what is in this pitcher. This is all of the fresh water we have to sustain us - less than three-one thousandths of one percent of the Earth’s water.”

There are 1.3 billion people without access to clean drinking water; 2.6 billion people are without access to sanitation; and one-half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from water-borne diseases. Nearly 2 billion cubic metres of water are used globally each day. Each North American uses, on average, 650 litres of that water. The largest single household use is flushing the toilet, which uses eight to twenty-five litres per flush. Brushing teeth takes about eight litres; taking a shower consumes 100 to 200; dishwashers use 45 to 75 litres per load. It takes four litres of water to process one pound of hamburger, 40 litres to process a chicken, and 40,000 litres to make a new car, on average. Meanwhile, in some parts of the world, the single most important task is walking several miles to collect the daily ration of water and returning it safely to the family.

Mr. Clark continued, “not too long ago I spoke with a friend who returned recently from working in Nicaragua. He told me about a discussion he had with the Minister of Education, who was hopeful that my friend could help with their population explosion. My friend replied that he did not understand, as he was there to work on the water systems. He was then told that it is was the responsibility of young girls to gather the water, which takes most of the day, and as a result they are unable to attend school. Being uneducated, they end up having many babies. Often times we do not think about other important impacts our profession has on seemingly unrelated aspects of the global village.

“When things go well in our industry, you are invisible. You do your jobs so well that you are not even noticed. I have yet to see a newspaper headline that reads “Sewage Plant Ran Well Today.”

“Despite this record, environmental professionals are often painted as polluters, and we need to change that perception. Be proud of what you do,” he told the audience. “You are the ultimate environmentalists, treating a waste product so it can be safely returned to the environment, while recovering valuable resources. It has been estimated that during a 30-year career, the average WWTP operator in North America will treat over 2 billion cubic metres of wastewater and remove over 500 million kilos of pollutants.

“We as water professionals touch the lives of millions of human beings every day. There is no other profession that has such an impact on public health. But we can always do better. By participating in professional training and advancing the level of knowledge of our industry, you are helping make the world a safer place to live. I applaud you for your efforts,” he concluded.

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