Libris Britannia 4/science library(b).zip/science library(b)/SCIENTIF/1461.ZIP/TEXT.ARC/WWTRENDS.TXT

Text File | 1988-12-20 | 28KB | 407 lines

                              TRENDS IN THE FIELD



               As most operators should know these days, the trends in this
           field for operators are promising.  Water quality has become an
           ever increasing awareness on the public's mind since the early
           1970's and with passage of the Water Quality Improvement Act of
           1970 and the Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. One of the
           mandates that came from those acts was to increase operator training
           and capabilities.

           From "Report to Congress on Training for Operators of Publicly
           Owned Wastewater Treatment Plants". EPA--WH-546. FEB. 1985.

           "A top priority of the EPA is to assure that municipal wastewater
           treatment facilities are constructed, operated and maintained to
           meet design and effluent discharge permit requirements.  Since
           1972 the Federal Government has spent almost $37 billion to help
           communities pay for construction of publicly owned wastewater
           treatment plants that meet the effluent requirements of the
           Federal Clean Water Act (P.L.92-500), as amended.  Although the
           vast majority of plants funded since 1972 that treat more than 1
           million gallons of wastewater a day comply with their permits,
           small plants tend to have significant performance and compliance
           problems. Small plants represent about 90 percent of the total
           number of facilities built since 1972 though they account for
           only about 10 percent of total municipal flow.  While overall EPA
           and State municipal compliance efforts have increased
           substantially, small plants are unlikely to receive substantial
           direct compliance emphasis due to limited Federal and State
           resources and national emphasis on noncomplying plants with the
           greatest water quality impacts."....."A key factor in compliance
           problems at small plants is that the operators, although usually
           certified, often lack the necessary technical knowledge and
           mechanical skills needed to operate, maintain and manage the
           treatment plant."



               This is of course a subject somewhat sensitive for most
           operators who take their field seriously.  It is true that
           operator knowledgeability is jumping in quantum leaps from what
           was the norm just ten years ago...but the fact remains, most
           operators understand their process but only superficially. This
           is an unqualified observation.  It is hard to depict what would
           be an "old school" or a "new school" in today's fast changing
           attitudes and technology, but it was little more than forty
           years ago that the ideas of environmental protection and ecological
           impact were simply not thought about.  It was not uncommon that
           raw sewage was dealt with by simply allowing it to flow to
           receiving waters(two cities are known that did this as late as
           1952). The sewer plant was...well..the sewer plant.  The whole
           emphasis was on design...engineers trying to come up with total
           oxidation processes and the like..automatic processes that needed
           little operational control.  Operations was percieved as a niche
           applicable for the untechnical mind...often as that of a
           "nightwatchman" and the thought processes reserved in a large
           part only for engineering ranks. As late as 1974, operator
           certification was obtained simply by passing a math exemption
           test.  Certification was held lightly in professional ranks as
           licenses were handed to engineers almost for the asking.  This of
           course stopped after 1971-75 with the revamping of pollution
           control regulation departments and the mandates from the EPA for
           increased operator training and re-emphasis on process control.

               Since 1975, technology has been growing and improving at an
           ever increasing pace.  Already, what was just a few years ago
           very innovative applications, such as spray irrigation and
           wastewater reuse, are now nationwide and commonplace.  In 1986,
           vacuum filtration sludge beds were experimental.  Now, we see
           them cropping up everywhere.  Before 1980, instrumentation was
           reserved for flow measurments and little else, and that mostly
           effluents and RAS.  Now we see plants with exotic instrumentation
           and the increasing computerization of entire plants and a new
           emphasis on reusing wastewater in beneficial manners that is
           reclassifying sewage as a part of a continous and ongoing
           recycling of water.  If there was such a thing as an "old
           school"(..ie the preverbial night watchman/handymen attitudes of
           the 50's and before, then the exploding technology of the last
           five years threatens to create a second "old school" for those
           operators who do not see the implications of all this growth.
           Already there is talk in many areas of creating two and even four
           year curriculums at local colleges as requirements for the
           operator of the future.

                The most recent emphasis in environment protection is that
           of groundwater contamination.  We need to only remember the
           sensationalized media articles in previous months about plastics
           and medical debri washing up on our beaches.  The dumping of
           sewage sludge has been becoming more and more a headache for
           administrators nationwide..."where can it be dumped without being
           a harm to our environment".  Studies on carcinogens and toxic
           wastes have mulitplied and with new evidence coming out every day
           we are revamping our whole perception of our fragile existence
           with our environment.  Just a dozen years ago, even in
           engineering circles, it simply was not thought about as to how
           substances affect us once it penetrated the soil.  Long term
           migrations of chemical substances simply were not quieried.  A
           lot of this understanding has come about only with the growing
           technology of computers.  Since 1979, the EPA has defined maximum
           allowable levels for over 77 toxic pollutants  and 129 priority
           pollutants for monitoring.  This list will probably only grow.
           After the Solid Waste Disposal Act and Resource Recovery and
           Conservation Acts were passed in Congress, the Comprehensive
           Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act was
           created and a billion dollar superfund set up for allocation to
           the states for cleanup as these contaminating sites were
           discovered. This has brought on a large scale involvement by
           engineering firms nationwide competing for this new business and
           the revamping and creation of whole departments directed solely
           toward such cleanup.

                What all this means for the operator is that the
           environmental field is now highly on the mind of people
           nationwide.  Along with this is an increased scrutiny and an
           increased conscious raising by the general public...and a new
           demand for quality and competency in "all phases" of
           environmental protection.  As Acts and laws are being passed, so
           also is the demand for reputable professionals to carry out the
           new standards that are being asked...and with a great deal of
           public funds being diverted to environmental issues, so also is
           there a "rush" to this field.  Hydrogeologists, chemists,
           spcialized engineers, and management have all increased in ranks
           with some of the best talents to be found.  In short...where
           there's honey, so are the bees.  Much of this honey of course
           comes by way of public mandate to have clean water and to live
           without fear from toxic pollutants and chemicals.  Much of this
           mandate has come by way of an ever pervavsive industrial complex
           that is getting harder and harder to balance properly with our
           environment.  Incidents such as Five Mile Island, Love Canal,
           barges being stranded on the high seas with garbage, the furor
           over sludge dumping off Long Island, and the washing up of
           hospital wastes on our shores have all gone to feed this
           mandate...and to create at least to some degree a minor hysteria
           in the public mind.  Who does all of this "polluting"?  It is
           perhaps unfortunate (and to some degree fortunate), that it is
           wastewater treatment plants that are most visible in the public's
           eye ...and will become an ever increasing target for scrutiny
           from the general populace. The good part of all this is that the
           public is looking this way at all.

                It is in that mandate that forecasters describe this field
           in general as one of the more opportune to be in.  Of course,
           this describes the field in general...and of course would apply
           most significantly to professionals(by credential). Most
           operators and operator organizations talk with a great deal of
           hope about the future of plant operators everywhere.  In the more
           personal perceptions, it should mean higher visibility, a more
           respectable status in the community, better benefits and higher
           wages...and as well a requirement for a higher level of training.

                 On the down side, we should all take a look at what is
           really happening in a lot of our plants.  A dozen years ago, the
           plant operator pretty much ran the show.  He or she ran the
           plant, kept up the equipment, did the lab tests(process and
           reportable), ran the lift stations, and was even cross trained at
           the water plant(in many places).  Usually not all at the same
           time...but in any given area, it was operators that were hired to
           do this work. Operators could obtain lab tech certificates,
           readily cross train between water and wastewater to obtain
           licenses, and even obtain lift station certificates(as sort of
           specialties within operations).  It was still operators running
           plants...indeed as the job title would suggest, as it should be.
           Of course, the "old school" prevailed to a great degree...and
           many operators defined themselves in the light of their
           predecessors...the night watchman/handyman with an emphasis on
           mechanical upkeep.  Not all operators of course...and even then
           there was a transition going on.

                  Slowly, instead of the operator being given higher levels
           of training and gaining a greater respectability as the
           technician as he should be seen as...the prevailing trend has
           been to take away the operator's responsiblities and give it to
           others who theoretically were better trained for that specialty.
           Even though there has been much ado about operator training and
           the establishment of new courses and short schools and the like,
           the training is still held to a vocational level for the most
           part and the instruction is often inhouse.  In short, the top
           quality instruction is still only available at the university
           level for the most part.  It has gotten better, but there remains
           a great need for top quality instruction that "understands" the
           special needs of the operator.  One of the first things to go was
           the idea of interdepartmental utility plants.  Most
           municipalities differentiate the water and wastewater departments
           as two entirely seperate entities now.   There was once a
           comraderie that existed between water and wastewater operators as
           being simply "operators".  This still holds to some degree of
           course, but the trend has been a differentiation between these
           two sides of our trade that promotes the operator to eventually
           identify either with wastewater or water entirely.

                 The next trend was to differentiate more and more the idea
           of "laboratory" as somthing outside the realm of operators. The
           operator could readily handle the water chemistry that was
           demanded ten years ago...but instead of the field ingaging in
           training operators for the function, the idea of lab technician
           has become a specialty all to itself...often again completely
           differentiated from operators. This is perhaps the greatest
           decentralization of the operator's control of his plant when even
           the process control tests must be run by a specified lab tech. So
           also have we seen specialization come about in maitenance
           departments also being more and more differentiated from
           operators...and instrumentation specialists and electrical
           maintenance being added to the ranks of the utility plant.  The
           final blow has been the trend toward regionalization...the
           building of a few large plants rather than the building of a lot
           of small plants to handle an area's wastewater.  At larger
           plants, the operation of the plant is usually given to an process
           engineer...and the operator is finally reduced to ther preverbial
           "night watchman/glorified sample taker" status outright.  Since
           the "responsibilities" are carried by other personnel, it is only
           left that the operator be utilized essentially as a laborer.   At
           one large plant, it was observed that the operators brought in
           television sets on the night shifts and moved from their seats
           only at prescribed sample/record times.  All an operator did was
           rake bar screens, clean weirs, waste x gallons as prescribed by
           the plant director, and grabbed samples.  That was it.  There was
           no thought process that went along with that plants operations
           for operators.

                it would be hopeful to be able to report that this was an
           isolated case, but in fact, experience has shown that more times
           than not operators are simply not being utilized as
           operators...but essentially as the hired help that rakes bar
           screens and cleans weirs...and of course, buffs floors.  Even the
           operators who run the plants (there are usually one or two that
           control things if there is no onsite engineer) often run things
           "by the seat of their pants" with little or no communication as
           to reasons or objectives. So many times it's been observed that
           operators simply going through the motions of process
           testing...running a mixed liquor suspended solids only because
           they have to, skipping a settleable solids because no one will
           know...penciling in numbers with little or no comprehension as to
           what they might indicate or mean.  It's not all the fault of
           operators of course...and often it is simply a matter of how an
           organizaiton utilizes operators.  It revolves around a mental
           perception by those who are not operators of what an operator
           is...or at least should be.

                 But it is the fault of operators indirectly.

                 We must all imagine that we come into this field with a big
           obstacle already in place in the general populace simply for the
           fact that it is sewage that we deal with.  The Public simply is
           not aware of what happens to their wastewater...and it is
           historical that sewage is considered as "low class" (it's
           true...in India for instance, the aristrocratic consider coming
           into contact with sewage as sacraligious).  This does not bother
           most operators, and it is enough that "we" know what we do.  This
           is mentioned only to suggest a sort of public mentality that
           exists that carries over to a great degree to inhouse
           professionals...especially administrators (those professionals
           that have little contact with operations).  It is perhaps a
           perception that carries over from the historical attitudes of a
           decade or more ago in which the wastewater plant was seen as
           place where very unsophisticated or nontechnical minded workers
           were placed.  Esteem has always existed in the engineering ranks
           and even to some degree in managerial ranks at the plants...but
           the operator was stereotyped as one without much education but
           with some mechanical ability.  It is perhaps the greatest reason
           that EPA analysis of wastewater plants that were in noncompliance
           in the mid to late seventies found that the number one reason for
           that noncompliance was lack of operator understanding of process
           control.  Fact is, we are not traditionally seen as a very highly
           educated grouping in orthodox professinal ranks.  If such a
           perception is to be changed...and if the adequate wages and
           benefits are to come...and if we are to protect our niche in the
           scheme of things from being taken over by specialization...then
           such change will have to be accomplished by operators themselves.

                 It is perhaps not an easy road we operators hoe in this
           struggle to gain respectiblity in professional ranks.  There is a
           lot of lip service paid that grants the idea of the "Professional
           Operator"...but proof of the pudding as they say will only show
           up in higher wages and increased benefits.  As of yet, I think we
           all know that this has not happened.

                  The reason rests largely on the shoulders of operators
           themselves.  Images, like reputations, are one of the hardest
           things to establish in the positive light...and perhaps the
           hardest thing to live down in the negative light.  As long as
           there are operators who prefer to bring televisions to work on
           the night shift and choose to skip tests since no one will know,
           the general exhumed image that will necessarily "shine through"
           will be that of the "uncurious and even uninterested" mind. What
           we need is a show of "vital concern and unquenchable thirst to
           know" shown toward our superiors...especially toward those who
           sit behind the policy making chairs downtown.  We need to hound
           engineers...to not show any sense of intimidation but that we
           belong alongside them in the classroom...at least to the degree
           of technical expertise to run our plants.   In the past there has
           been this ongoing resentment between operators and engineers(at
           least operators towards engineers).  The proper niche of the
           operator is really as the right hand man of the engineer...his
           field technician as it were.  We should see ourselves as an
           extension of that engineer...and then promote that idea.  Only
           the truely uneducated cry foul toward the educated when things
           are out of their scope.  The first step toward better pay and
           conditions all around is to identify with the engineer...and then
           thrist after his knowledge.  In that identity will we re-
           establish ourselves in the eyes of anyone...especially
           administrators.  To the curious mind, a plant's activity is not a
           matter of humdrum routine...but that of a profound
           inquisitiveness in which there is no such thing as enough data or
           information.  Whether or not our personal levels of formal
           training allow us to readily understand or not...it should still
           be an unquenchable thirst we feel inside.  And it should be an
           outright demand by all operators that Knowledge cannot be kept
           from anyone and is the right of everyone.

               It would be hoped that there are a lot of operators that
           would resent such trends as depicted here and for those who take
           their field of endeavor seriously, it takes only a sober look
           around to see that what holds us back in general is the image
           created by a few.  We are fighting old perceptions as it is...and
           so it is up to all of us to promote the new operator as a
           technical expert whenever we can.  A recent experience working
           with some chemical plant operators showed they carried far less
           responsibility than the average water or wastewater plant
           operator.  They did not have to be certified nor take any test,
           nor did they work with statistics, numbers, calculations, or
           anything else that might require some training...and yet it was
           learned that average wages in their line of work was nearly five
           to six dollars an hour more than what is considered average for
           the water or wastewater plant operator.  The only difference has
           to be that of images and perceptions of those in policy making
           ranks.  I am still reminded of the one large city that promoted
           garbage refuse workers into the wastewater plant as a
           motivational device(for garbage refuse workers). It all adds up
           to the simple image we hold.  There is somthing extremely
           admirable about the good technical operator...for as the saying
           goes, a thousand days can pass while his efforts are superlative
           and no one will know...but then that one enevitable day when
           things go awry comes along...and the whole community will show up
           on his doorstep.  It is in our best interests to trek to the
           public's doorstep first...especially our adminstrators and policy
           makers doorsteps...and change age old perceptions in those who
           define job classifications and hand out responsibilities that
           those thousand days existed and for reasons that relate to a
           technical ability of the modern operator.


                These are some very real world perceptions that need to be
           understood...and for a reason.  That reason is for the serious
           operator who has invested a lot of time and effort to be good and
           do good at what he does.  The trends in the field in general are
           of course very promising.  But we must take a very sober look at
           some of the directions and possibilities...and what negative
           trends we find attempt to change...especially if they are off the
           mark and not in the community's best interests.  The latest
           advancement that seems to be enshrouding our field is of course
           the computerization of plants...and the turning over of plant
           processes to sophisticated software.  Much of this is a boon for
           the operator as computers mean a much more centralized control of
           plants as well the ability to store and use a great deal of
           information.  But it does not take too much foresight to see
           where mass instrumentation and computerization of plants can and
           most likely will lead.  If a terminal is set up cross town or
           even cross state or country(or even in-plant), it is a very
           simple task to have data accessable at such terminals for
           analysis and subsequent process control dictation by specialists
           who are not involved with the plant in a sensual hands on manner.
           And that can be a dangerous trend for the operator...where with
           this new emphasis our general populace is making on pollution
           control, instead of promoting operators and their level of
           expertise, the trend could be (and to some degree already is) to
           bring what would have been otherwise outside professionals into
           the field to take over tasks that were once thought of as the
           responsiblity of the operator.

                And why not if the image that we exhume as a group does not
           impress our administrators enough that they have confidence in
           our abilities to handle the new demands made on the field.
           Observations made over the last fourteen years....and even more
           importantly over the last three or four years...only supports the
           validity of this trend.   A reknown University Professor gave a
           talk at our local short school last year on the subject of
           groundwater contamination.  The speaker following was a local
           plant superintendent who cracked jokes and told good old boy
           stories for an hour.  While talking to fellow operators after
           classes that night, there was an overwhelming dislike and bad
           review of the professor...and just as overwhelming praise of how
           good an instructor the superintendent was.

                 The above story did not really happen...but in a few
           sentences it tells exactly why our pay scale remains in the realm
           of laborer.  Things are changing of course.  But if they are not
           speeded up by us all, we just might find ourselves cut out of our
           own niche that we've worked so hard for over the years.  In some
           larger plants this has already taken place...and the operator is
           already being reduced to that of glorified sample taker.  The
           challenge and "responsibility" is on each of our shoulders.