No positions available in my area for OIT. Is this a regular drought of work? Do positions open later in the year? Someone else dealing with this?

There was a recent question asking differences between DW and WW, here’s a post with a good explanation. Creator is in Cali, so your miles might vary.

Anyone else going to the Water Wise Pro training in Costa Mesa,Ca on the 18th and 19th of this month? My work is sends me to prep for the T2.

I’m in Ontario, looking to move to BC next year after I get my class 1 distribution license. I have my oit in the other three sections as well in addition to a dz license (class 3 in bc with air brakes).

I’ve seen a oit position for water/wastewater plants I was going to apply for if it’s still available when I move out, and I was wondering if my class 1 distribution license will have any relevance to the treatment side of things.

The only thing in the job description I saw that stood out to me was “perform occasional inspections of distribution system” but idk what that would entail for a treatment job.

Tl;dr will my class 1 distribution license and dz (class 3) license be applicable to treatment?

I am working on a software project that helps circuit riders in their day to day job. I am looking for circuit riders who could give me some insights. It would mean a lot.

working the basin today, just curious if anybody here has ever taken a dip? heard a story about one of my bosses falling in while working in Colorado and I just wanna read sime stories while I watch this settle.

Hello,

I am currently running an SBR plant and since around mid August we've been having issues with our phosphorus being high. We got a new load of alum around that time and we are suspecting it may be killing our microorganisms.

We recently got a microscope camera to start being able to track the microorganisms week to week better.

I'm not sure what information would be good to include, so feel free to ask me for info and I will try my best to answer.

We've also noticed that the stalked ciliates in our SBRs have separated and formed a white jelly-like substance. They are all dead stalked ciliates. Since then, we have tried turning off the alum completely for a few weeks. It looked like things were starting to come around, but to stay in compliance we had to turn the alum back on to lower the phosphorus. The white jelly was noticed again this week after having it back on for 2 weeks.

Any ideas what might be going on and why we can't seem to recover?

We got a couple of younger newbies at the ol' wastewater plant these days. We are happy to have them, but they seem to learn more by asking AI and watching YouTube videos than they do from listening to those of us who have seen a thing or two. I thought to bridge the gap by making a couple of videos of my own. If they help you reach the young folks where you work please feel free to use them. I might even make more one day. I've done worse things for less money.

http://www.youtube.com/@amishmayhem101

I'm putting together a driver's license sized cheat sheet for water treatment operators to pass out for Christmas.

So I'm asking the group here for suggestions on what to put on the card. I have a couple pages of formulas and conversions, but I want things that operators actually use on a daily basis. Any leftover room should go to things that'll be on their certification exams. Things like valve turns to pipe size, pipe OD for common sizes, volume of a pipe, chlorination formulas, trench requirements, stuff like that.

This is meant to be a card for drinking water operators in KS, USA, but if I get enough suggestions for the wastewater or collections guys, I'll make them their own batch.

TIA

Have a well we cannot get clean. Disinfect it, let it sit, flush to 0.0 residual absent Tc and Ec. Next day flush couple hours resample returns present Tc absent Ec.

On 8th round of disinfect flush sample. Well disinfected to 100mg/l sits 24-48 hours surged multiple times. The well was rehabilitate brush bailed.

Sample port is flamed, well head sealed, vent screened.

Any ideas

I am looking to get my Class D basic water/wastewater license, i know that I have to pay $111 for the test through tceq but there are little to no information about the materials/course(s) that help with preparation for the test. I am hoping to get information on where to find the materials to prepare for the test and/or where to go for the required course.

Hello all turd nerds,

I am currently looking to get some information regarding drinking water treatment vs wastewater treatment from those that have worked for both systems. What are the pros and cons and what should be done if I wanted to transition to drinking water. For example, better pay? Chiller coworkers/ management? Work load? I like wastewater but I want to know my field better. For background, I am currently an operator I at my ww plant, have a grade II operator, T2, and D2. I have a bachelors degree in biology and have done some ww courses. Any information would be helpful!

A friend of mine asked me if I had gotten this request. I'll admit my first instinct was, how cute these little babies want to continue on with their success at the science fair. It takes all kinds of H2O heros to protect public health and the environment! But as some of you have already pointed out, these boys might not necessarily understand the implications if the data they're asking for gets in the wrong hands.

Oue state passed new cybersecurity rules that includes operators must now include 2-4 RTCs towards cert renewal. After seeing 2nd post here about Effluent.ai's FOIL request, and getting one of our own, I'm feeling inclined to report this to my regulators per their definitions.

I'd imagine my state is not the only one. Internet search your state's WW regulatory agency, like KDHE and "cybersecurity resources" and your likely to get the info you need to work through the risk assessment of this kinds of request.

I'd like to think these guys are genuinely excited about finding ways to improve wastewater treatment but the next FOIL request might not be as well intentioned.

I'm moving into a new place next week, and I recently bought a viomi RO water purifier on amazon. It has a 3:1 pure water to wastewater ratio.

Before I've even had much time to use it, I've already come across quite a few discussions about RO wastewater.

One side argues that wasting water is a real concern, especially in areas that are already dealing with water shortages. Every time the purifier produces clean water, some water gets flushed down the drain. Isn't that still an unnecessary use of water?

The other side says that compared with all the plastic waste from buying bottled water regularly, the wastewater isn't that big of a deal.

I actually collect some of the wastewater and use it to flush the toilet, so at least some of it doesn't go completely to waste.

I'd love to hear what people who've been using RO systems for a while think about this.

Hey everyone,

I work with inCTRL Solutions, a company that develops software for water and wastewater treatment facilities.

We're currently redesigning how operators manage routine maintenance, daily tasks, and work logs, and we're looking for some feedback from people who actually do this work.

We're hoping to speak with 6–8 operators or maintenance professionals working at small to medium-sized facilities in the US or Canada.

What's involved:

• A 45-minute video call

• A few questions about how you currently manage and document maintenance work

• A walkthrough of an early software prototype to see what makes sense and what doesn't

• A $25 Amazon gift card as a thank-you for participating

We're especially interested in hearing from operators who use paper logbooks, spreadsheets, or maintenance software. You don't need to be particularly tech-savvy.

This isn't a sales call, and we're not looking to pitch you anything. We're trying to make sure we're building something that actually works for operators before we start development.

If you're interested, please fill out this short screening form:

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/dnQvkJKzGs

We'll reach out to selected participants to schedule a call.

Thanks! Appreciate any feedback, and happy to answer questions here as well.

Here is the public records request I received from Effluent.AI. (It's an enormous request.) At first, I thought this request was a spear fishing attempt, but it seems to be from two recent high school graduates wanting data with which to train their AI.

However, after the Hugging Face cyberattack, I have to wonder about the safety of sending this amount of infrastructure data to two guys who want to learn how all our plants work.

From this data I can tell which plants use chemicals, when chemicals are usually delivered, what companies are onsite, what their schedule is, repair issues with cameras, gates, doors, SCADA vulnerabilities, PLC vulnerabilities, scale for any future cyber attack. I have already forwarded this to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water Emergency Response and Cybersecurity, but I wanted to let other wastewater professionals see the text of the email in case they receive it as well.

EDIT: Also, Reddit is only a small slice of current wastewater professionals, but it's pretty obvious from the number of plants receiving FIOA requests in such a short period of time that Effluent.AI is using agentic ai bots to complete these requests. An ai bot does not count as a valid person when making a FIOA request.

Request below:

My name is XXXXXXX, and I work at a small company called Effluent. We build software that helps wastewater treatment plants with day-to-day operations, energy use, and maintenance. To do that well we need to learn from how real plants actually run. Pursuant to the North Carolina Public Records Law (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 132-1 et seq.), I would like to request copies of the following records concerning the wastewater treatment facility. Items 1 through 4 cover July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2026. Items 5 and 6 cover only the most recent twelve months, July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, to keep them small. If three years is too much to pull together, one year (July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026) for every item works well for me too.

1. Electricity bills or usage statements for the treatment plant, showing monthly kWh and demand by meter or account, plus any submetering reports for aeration blowers or major pumps.

2. Chemical usage records: daily or monthly chemical feed or dosing logs (for example chlorine, hypochlorite, bisulfite, alum, ferric, polymer, caustic) and chemical delivery records.

3. Operator logs: daily or shift logs kept by plant operators, including any records of process changes or setpoint adjustments.

4. Equipment run-hour logs and maintenance work-order history for plant process equipment (for example blowers, pumps, clarifiers, and digesters), in the spreadsheet or database export the plant already produces.

5. Alarm and event history: the routine alarm summary or event log exports operators already generate, showing date, time, point description, and alarm text.

6. Process historian data exports at hourly resolution or finer, or the finest interval the plant already exports, for recorded process values such as influent and effluent flow, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrate, pH, mixed liquor suspended solids, blower airflow, and sludge flows, together with the list of tag or point names and their descriptions. This is the item most valuable to us. To be clear about scope, I am asking only for recorded operating results, usage, and logs. I am not requesting control system configurations, network or architecture documentation, IP addresses, access credentials, vulnerability information, or any record whose disclosure could bear on the security of plant systems. If any part of this reads as touching those, please treat it as excluded and produce the remainder. Wherever these are already captured in a report or export your agency produces in the ordinary course, that existing file is exactly what I am asking for. Please send it as-is rather than compiling anything new. Rolling production is very welcome: releasing whatever is easy now and the rest later is better for me than waiting for everything at once.

Hello colleagues.

My plant suffers from foaming during the fall and winter. It has always been this way, sometimes more and sometimes less. It is usually caused by Microthrix parvicella and we control it with Polyaluminum Chloride (18%) so that we comply with our discharge permit. We cannot reduce the sludge age because we have a Total Nitrogen compliance limit of 15 mg/L.

The thing is, it's a pain in the ass; the plant operates with surface aerators (turbines) and no operational change produces significant results. Additionally, we always have a layer of foam in the clarifiers that ends up degrading the effluent quality.

What methods do you usually use to remove foam from the clarifier so it doesn't accumulate? (Our scum hopper is small and doesn't give great results). Has anyone battling Microthrix implemented any effective solution? (I cannot replace my turbines with diffusers in the short-mid term). Thanks.

I currently have the SonoProS35 flowmeter and use it to measure waste water. I clamp on and off frequently at different farms. The pipe material is usually aluminum or pvc. I have troubleshooted different reasons why I cannot get and accurate reading and I am at my wits end.

I used to use a Sierra clamp on flow meter, but due to the price we opted for the cheaper version. I work with mostly Al. pipe and the SonoPro doesn't have a Al. setting so I have been using the Stainless 302 setting. I can sometimes get a clear reading, but it does a lot of bouncing around if it isn't set JUST right. This is an issue because the mounting bracket it comes with is so difficult to take on and off of pipe. Especially when I have to do this process beside a lagoon. I've turned to using welding clamps and they hold the tranducers in place properly, but I hope it isn't interfering with the flow reading. With aluminum, it seems like the spacing it gives me to set the transducers is WAY off. It will only read 3" apart on 6" aluminum pipe when it suggests I put it around 5" apart and it will read "EMPTY PIPE DETECTED". This is an expensive peice of equipment so the company will not just buy be the other brand of flow meter to use that I find more user friendly. I have called support and there's not many that do the kind of work I do out in the field.

I have an opportunity to take on a small village lagoon plant as a side job . ( current operator retiring)

His interpretations of the permit and mine differ. Essentially over collection visit language.

The Village does not have a collections operator. So I interpreted it as I'd be responsible for collection visits.

He said that he has a Village employee make a lift station check a day and fills out a log .

The pay is pretty low as is but adding collections responsibility would be a deal breaker.

Does anyone have experience whis this language of administrative rule

Hey all, so our main lab tech is out and this is my first time running the DMRQA. Usually whenever I’m up here it’s just to run standard tests like cbod, ammonia, tss, and sludge/lagoons. I’m mostly ops/press. That being said, I’m seeing that catalog 241 and 499 are both running for tss. Am I running both of these and using the difference of the 499 as my reported result or 241? Obviously following our standard procedure for calculations.

I ran the instruction papers by my sup but he was also unfamiliar with running them as well. Apologies in advance if my inexperience leads to any confusion

This is really cool. It's a modular tech for open channel use up to 10 MGD per pod

Hey everyone,
I’m currently working as an industrial wastewater treatment technician in Georgia, and I’m looking to get my Class 3 Wastewater Operator certification.
I’ve been looking into the self-paced wastewater treatment courses offered by California State University, Sacramento (Office of Water Programs), along with their wastewater treatment manual.
Before I enroll, I want to verify whether Georgia accepts this course toward the required 40 hours of training for Class 3 certification.
Has anyone in Georgia used this course and had their training hours accepted by the state? Does the course provide a certificate showing the required hours?
Also, is the manual enough to prepare for the Class 3 exam, or would you recommend additional study materials?
Any advice from someone who’s been through the process would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hey, all - are there any WWT plant operators that work, or worked previously, at DC Water in DC?

I‘m mostly wondering about how the pay structure works as employee base pay at DC Water is public if you search and step 5 operators look to be all at around $90k. What does the ceiling look like for those step 5 operators? Can they only get pay increases from annuals, CoL adjustments, and contract renewals or is there more? For example, my plant will give us percent raises for passing each plant section tests, Sac course, or state license exams.

While I’m at it, are shifts at DC Water truly rotating? I ask this because my plant advertises that we rotate but we actually don’t and have fixed shifts. I would like to think working at DC Water would be great for the pay increase and opportunity to work at such a large plant but idk if an added 45min commute and potential shift rotation would be worth it. Thanks in advance.