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Meet CH2M HILL’s Living Water Awards Finalists

by Access Water on May 8th, 2013 Leave a Comment No Comments

Susan Mays, Vice President, Marketing & Strategic InitiativesBy Susan M. Mays, Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives in CH2M HILL’s Operations Management Business Group

Working at CH2M HILL, I’ve always believed I work with the best in the water business. So when I learned this week that both finalists competing for Living Water Awards are CH2M HILL employees, I was thrilled but certainly not surprised. It’s the first time since the awards were established last fall that two people from the same company have competed against one another.

Administrative Specialist Lynn Kronowit of Rio Rancho, N.M. and Project Manager Chris Parker of Temple, Texas are the latest finalists for the National Association of Water Companies Living Water Awards. Both of them work in CH2M HILL’s Operations Management Business Group on projects where we’re responsible for the management of water and/or wastewater facilities. And we couldn’t be more proud of them.

living-water-awards-logo_webThe NAWC Living Water Awards program is an ongoing initiative launched last fall so that private-sector water professionals can recognize those peers they consider best in industry when it comes to providing excellent service or championing environmental stewardship. Any employee of an NAWC member company can participate by nominating a colleague at any time. The voting process takes place every two months on NAWC’s Facebook page. The winner will receive a $100 gift card. At the end of the year, a grand prize winner will be selected from among the winners and will receive a $1,000 gift card.

As a member of the NAWC Board of Directors, I’m so proud that the organization is singling out the operators, mechanics, plant and project managers, and others who work tirelessly in our nation’s water and wastewater systems. This recognition of what they do to provide us with clean drinking water and to protect our environment is long overdue.

Personally, I’m conflicted about who to vote for, so I just voted for both of them.

You can help NAWC choose the winner. Read more about the nominees here, then cast your vote just by liking the image of Lynn. Or Chris. Or both. But hurry! Voting ends May 17.

Meet the Finalists

Lynn Kronowit, Administrative Specialist

Rio Rancho, N.M.

Lynn KronowitLynn is “Living Water” through her commitment to educating children on sustainability issues. In 2007, Lynn became involved with the Albuquerque Children’s Water Festival, an event held to teach 4th grade students about the water cycle, where water in New Mexico comes from, and how to protect and conserve this valuable resource. Taking lessons learned there, she helped establish a similar festival in her Rio Rancho community. Lynn visits local elementary schools weekly, teaching lessons on conservation, basic wastewater procedures, how the water cycle works, and ways to reduce water pollution. In 2009, she was hand-picked to join the Operations Management Business Group’s newly formed sustainability team and now leads our sustainability efforts in New Mexico.

Colleagues describe Lynn as a true “sustainability champion” whose tireless efforts have helped educate thousands of young people about water and the need for conservation. Lynn’s leadership in helping plan, design and build sustainability programs has provided positive “triple-bottom line” success for CH2M HILL and our clients.

Christopher S. Parker, Project Manager

Temple, Texas

Chris ParkerChris is “Living Water” through his deep commitment to protecting and improving the quality of the environment through his role as project manager for CH2M HILL, where he is driven to achieve and maintain perfect compliance and accurate reporting of non-compliance issues, and identify and implement solutions to remedy those issues.

But it isn’t just a day job; Chris also has dedicated himself to helping surrounding communities as a volunteer in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality “EnvironMentor” program. In this role, Chris puts his professional experience to work helping small businesses, local governments and independent school districts deal with state environmental regulations such as completing paperwork and answering technical questions. By working with these organizations that lack the resources or expertise to deal with these regulations on their own, Chris helps them avoid inspections, citations and fines, improve their efficiency, and protect the environment. He has been known to drive up to 3 hours one way, on multiple days, to provide this kind of help.

Chris loves working as a water professional and has been employed in the industry for almost 30 years, 18 of them with CH2M HILL. 

About NAWC

The National Association of Water Companies is the voice of the private water industry and the organization exclusively representing this group of quality water service providers, innovation drivers, creative financiers and responsible partners. Founded in 1895 by a handful of small water companies in Pennsylvania, NAWC today is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has members located throughout the nation and ranging in size from large companies owning, operating or partnering with hundreds of utilities in multiple states to individual utilities serving a few hundred customers. To learn more, visit NAWC.org or follow @movinh2oforward on Twitter.

Susan M. Mays is vice president of marketing and strategic initiatives in CH2M HILL’s Operations Management Business Group. She is on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Water Companies and is immediate past chair of NAWC’s Communications Committee. She tweets on water and local government issues as @WaterMizz.

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Adopting Maintenance Optimization Practices

by Access Water on May 6th, 2013 Leave a Comment No Comments

By Jim Oldach and Sam Paske, members of CH2M HILL’s Asset Management Team

This post is one of an ongoing series of Access Water posts about asset management best practices. Read the first few and stay tuned for more asset management insights over the coming weeks

McGraw-Hill Construction’s recently released study of asset management practices of US and Canadian water utilities, a CH2M HILL-sponsored research project, examined the extent to which water utilities have adopted 14 leading asset management practices, and which of these practices are of most value to implementers. More advanced practices, for example reliability centered maintenance (RCM), were found to be less widely adopted than other practices, even though—in the experience of many of our clients— application of these practices can increase the reliability of plants, equipment and other infrastructure, while generating substantial financial savings.

Many of our clients struggle with a backlog of corrective and preventive maintenance work that is difficult to manage. These organizations struggle to complete periodic preventive maintenance (PM) tasks because high priority repair work (often due to unexpected failures) gets in the way. Missed PM tasks in turn increase the rate of failure, leading to more repairs and a vicious cycle. The root cause of this problem is preventive tasks that do not effectively prevent the right failures.

Leading utilities are using tools like RCM and Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO) to get out of this trap. RCM is an advanced methodology to both prevent or control infrastructure failure through proactive efforts (including PM) and avoid costly reactive maintenance. PMO is an effort to reduce the workload associated with PM of plant equipment without increasing the risk of failure to an undue level. Failure is defined as the inability of a component to perform its function(s) as defined by the users of the system. The function of a piece of equipment can range from providing a specified flow rate to a process to preventing human injury.

PM Optimization

RCM and PMO prioritize maintenance activities that provide the most benefit to the organization by reducing the risk of critical failures that impact process function or impair safety. They also reduce the common traditional tendency to “love our equipment to death.” Studies have shown that up to 50% of the time, performing intrusive PM tasks may actually increase the chance of failure. A PM program is “optimized” when the least amount of resources are devoted to PM that will provide an “acceptable” level of risk of failure. If “acceptable” is defined as the lowest overall cost associated with failure (to include corrective maintenance, safety consequences, loss of operations, environmental damages/fines, etc.) then the PM program is optimized when the total costs (PM costs + Failures/CM costs) are minimized (see the chart above).

PMO reviews the existing maintenance program to:

– Delete maintenance tasks that provide little value.

– Extend or reduce PM interval based on type of task, equipment usage, environment, and industry guidelines.

– Reassign tasks to Operations that would be better served by having the Operations Department perform the task during routine surveillance.

Once maintenance resources are freed up from performing low value work, those resources can be devoted to completing the more valuable PM and Predictive Maintenance (PDM) tasks, supporting the RCM effort, doing failure analysis, corrective maintenance, etc.

Cincinnati’s PMO program, as adapted by the utility from “RCM – Gateway to World Class Maintenance”

CH2M HILL has worked with many clients to implement RCM and PMO programs with outstanding results in many cases. Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District’s Plant Maintenance Unit has been able to substantially reduce costly reactive maintenance, and anticipates being able to save as much as $1m/year in 2013 compared to 2011. Columbus Department of Public Utilities has also realized significant benefits in successfully applying the three principals above. CH2M HILL’s consultants work shoulder to shoulder with the maintenance organization to help build commitment and vision among staff to specific improvement goals, recognizing and encouraging innovation, and training staff to apply advanced maintenance methods and strategies. The figure above illustrates the basic elements of Cincinnati’s PMO program, as adapted by the utility from “RCM – Gateway to World Class Maintenance” with our partner Anthony “Mac” Smith.

You may be wondering if PMO methods and concepts can offer benefits to facilities beyond plants, pumps and other mechanical and electrical assets. The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” Organizations are applying PMO concepts to road maintenance, fleet equipment, facilities assets (such as HVAC systems) and more. To learn more, please contact us!

Jim Oldach, CH2M HILL Senior Project Manager, Operations Management GroupMr. Oldach is a skilled reliability centered maintenance (RCM2) practitioner and asset management expert. His more than 25 years of infield maintenance and asset management experience spans multiple industries including wastewater, gas, and electric utilities, hospitals, and nuclear facilities. For CH2M HILL, he provides asset management, reliability and maintenance consulting / support services to commercial, municipal and industrial clients. Mr. Oldach is based in Syracuse, New York.

 

 

Sam Paske, P.E. is a CH2M HILL senior management consultant and program managerSam Paske, P.E. is a senior management consultant and program manager with more than 17 years of experience in a broad range of expertise in utility operations and technology. He has specialized experience directly supporting executives, senior management and line of business teams in meeting complex regulatory, financial and operational challenges. Mr. Paske’s background includes a mix of organizational development (the people), best practice implementation (the processes), and technology solutions (the tools).

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National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation Winners Announced

by Access Water on May 3rd, 2013 Leave a Comment No Comments

Kate Peabody, Communications Strategist, CH2M HILL Water Business GroupBy Kate Peabody, CH2M HILL Communications Strategist

In our continued efforts to raise awareness of the value of water and promote conservation at the grassroots level, CH2M HILL WaterMatch is proud to partner with Wyland Foundation on the National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation to promote resource conservation and the importance of sustainability during Earth Month in April. We are happy to congratulate the five U.S. cities who were honored today for residents’ commitment to water-saving choices. Separated into five population categories, the winning cities are Denver, Colo.; Tucson, Ariz.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Bremerton, Wash. and Laguna Beach, Calif. Residents in all 50 states made more than 44,000 online pledges to save water, use less energy and reduce pollution in four categories – home, yard, community and life – with potential cost savings of more than $30.6 million!

These are impressive results, and it was great to see 70 mayors from across the U.S. participating in the challenge, including Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock; D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray; Columbus, Ohio Mayor Michael B. Coleman; Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn; Tucson, Ariz. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and Santa Fe, N.M. Mayor David Coss. City leaders encouraged their residents to participate in the online challenge, which also provided access to regional water and energy resources along with cost-saving tips.

CH2MHILL WaterMatch text color logoCH2M HILL WaterMatch was one of those resources.  As you may have heard us mention before, currently the United States only reuses 14% of its water supply—we can do a lot better! With that in mind and to tie the Challenge to the WaterMatch mission—to promote the beneficial reuse of municipal effluent and make the most of our water resources—residents earned points for their city by pledging to learn where their wastewater goes by visiting WaterMatch and searching the Matching Map. Mayors were asked to sign a conservation pledge as well as help their residents earn extra prizes by making sure their local wastewater treatment facilities’ information is on the WaterMatch map.

At a May 10 event in Denver, we will join Mayor Hancock as he draws the grand prize winner of a new Prius c from the pool of winning cities’ participants, who are also eligible to win hundreds of environmentally friendly prizes.

New to the challenge this year was the Wyland Clean Water Mobile Learning Experience, a 1,000-square foot interactive exhibit which demonstrates the ways water shapes human lives. The traveling exhibit features interactive models—from an onboard running river to a 40-person theater with computer-controlled special effects—to explore the nation’s complex relationship with its water resources. Since early March the tour has been traveling across the U.S., visiting schools and community events. CH2M HILL employees joined a number of our clients to participate in and volunteer at a number of the events, including in New York City; Washington, DC; Denver; Tucson; and Las Angeles, Calif. We’d like to send a big thank you to the US EPA, Denver Water, New York Department of Environmental Protection, Tucson Water, DC Water, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and many others, for joining us in our local communities to make a difference.

Brad volunteering in the Clean Water Mobile Learning ExperienceBrad Bettag, a CH2M HILL water resources engineer who spent a morning talking with students when the Mobile Learning Center stopped at DSST Cole Middle School in Denver, commented, “It was great to interact with the DSST Cole students, who asked great questions, were genuinely interested and engaged in the topic at hand, and had ideas about how their actions could make a positive impact both here in Denver and through the entire watershed. CH2M HILL understands the importance of fostering interest in science, technology, engineering and math at an early age to make sure we’re developing the next generation of problem solvers. I wish I had been introduced to water-related issues in such an interactive exhibit format like the Clean Water Mobile Learning Experience as a kid; I probably would have made the decision to become an engineer much sooner.”

CH2M HILL knows first-hand that sustainable water and resource management is critical to the future of our global community, economy and environment, and it was great to see so many employees, clients, friends and family members embrace the Challenge. Congratulations to the winning cities and to all of the participating mayors and residents who recognize that it takes action by all of us—individuals, organizations and government—to create a more sustainable world!

WaterMatch has more than 21,000 new water resources mapped in 42 countries and growing. Is your wastewater facility on the Matching Map? Let us know if it isn’t! Join us and help make matches happen. Because no water should be wasted.

Kate Peabody is a marketing and communications strategist for the CH2M HILL Global Water Business based in Englewood, CO, working on social media, public relations, brand and marketing, and internal communications. Kate is responsible for communications for strategic initiatives like WaterMatch, and runs the CH2M HILL Access Water blog. She has a bachelor’s in communication from Santa Clara University and a MBA in environmental policy and management from the University of Denver.

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Condition Assessment Vital to Effective Asset Management Program

by Access Water on May 1st, 2013 Leave a Comment 1 Comment

Jeff Sanford, CH2M HILL Director of Consulting ServicesBy Jeff Sanford, CH2M HILL Director of Consulting Services

This post is one of an ongoing series of Access Water posts about asset management best practices. Read the first few and stay tuned for more asset management insights over the coming weeks.

McGraw-Hill Construction’s recently released study of asset management practices of US and Canadian water utilities, a CH2M HILL-sponsored research project, examined the extent to which water utilities have adopted 14 leading asset management practices, and which of these practices are of most value to implementers. Based on the responses of 451 water utilities to the online survey, condition assessment was found to be the most effective of these 14 practices.

Detailed condition assessments provide five significant benefits:

– Identification of specific deficiencies in equipment assessed

– Identification of specific maintenance steps that may be taken to increase asset life and reduce likelihood of failure

– Data for prioritizing the allocation of resources to maintenance and capital investments

– Establishment of repeatable processes that can be applied broadly

– Over time, through repeated assessments, the accumulation of data to build asset decay curves

Condition assessments provide valuable information for estimating the risk that an asset will fail and the consequences if it does. Because conducting a condition assessment can be expensive, and in some cases may damage the asset, care should be taken regarding when and how these assessments are conducted. Newer assets, with low risk and consequence of failure, generally do not require anything more than collection and analysis of data on corrective maintenance performed (to identify trends and emerging problems), and (if possible) monitoring of asset performance via a SCADA system. Critical assets—those where failure may cause extended and/or widespread customer service disruption, damage to property or the environment, etc.—generally require more proactive on-site condition assessment, including application of more advanced condition assessment techniques, such as vibration analysis (for plant equipment), ultrasonic thickness measurement and pressure testing (for pipes), etc.

ACES screenshot

CH2M HILL has developed a propriety tool, the Asset Condition Evaluation Systems (ACES), to assess the condition of clients’ assets, develop a “risk score” for each asset, and generate an optimal multi-year maintenance and capital improvement plan. CH2M HILL has applied the ACES tool at 46 of the 200 water and wastewater plants it operates on behalf of local utilities in the US, and has used the tool at various manufacturing plants as well. Use of the tool has given plant operators data and analytics to create fact-based maintenance and capital improvement strategies, and to demonstrate to plant owners that CH2M HILL is utilizing best practices to care for the assets they have entrusted us with. Exposure to ACES also provides valuable training for maintenance and operations staff, teaching them to think strategically, using data, about where they spend their time and resources.

To learn more about how condition assessment best practices are being applied by CH2M HILL clients, check out this presentation, or send us an email.

Jeff Sanford is a Director of Consulting Services with over 20 years experience in maintaining water and wastewater facilities including collection and distribution systems. He is currently leading the condition assessment processes within CH2M HILL on a global level.  Jeff is a Certified Maintenance Reliability Professional as recognized by the Society for Maintenance Reliability Professionals. While working as a Director of Consulting Services, Jeff developed and implemented the Asset Condition Evaluation System for over 20 large facilities. Jeff has also assisted with the adaptation of the asset condition process to business process assessments, Jeff has completed many risk based condition assessment projects for both existing CH2M HILL projects and outside customers. These projects have ranged from 200 hundred to two thousand assets in both water and wastewater systems. Mr. Sanford also leads reliability efforts within CH2M HILL. 

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Pushing the Industry to Advance Biological Drinking Water Treatment Solutions

by Access Water on April 30th, 2013 Leave a Comment 3 Comments

Kerry Meyer, P.E., CH2M HILL Water Business Group Process and Design EngineerBy Kerry Meyer, P.E., CH2M HILL Water Business Group Process and Design Engineer

Biological drinking water treatment is gaining more attention in the water treatment community as a result of increased focus on affordable “green” treatment approaches and technologies capable of contaminant destruction. This is rather than contaminant concentration or generation of a brine stream typical of reverse osmosis or ion exchange, which often results in high, ongoing operations and maintenance costs. As first-use raw water supplies continue to become more limited, the challenge of producing high-quality, reliable finished water has become even more complex and, at the same time, utility capital improvement project budgets are shrinking. In many applications, biological drinking water treatment can offer an affordable, green treatment approach alternative to conventional methods and meet the industry’s growing demand for reliable, effective and sustainable treatment alternatives.

Noticing the great need for partnership and communication on this issue, I collaborated with the American Water Works Association (AWWA) to establish and lead the Biological Drinking Water Treatment Committee. The committee works to promote innovative drinking water treatment technologies, establish best practices and encourage cutting edge developments. Since its inception in 2008, the committee’s membership has reached more than 100 participants and is now one of AWWA’s largest and fastest growing committee. The committee has increased awareness on this topic and catalyzed increased funding and attention for the topic by international water research organizations like the Water Research Foundation and the International Water Association.

As research in biological drinking water treatment continues to grow and many design and implementation strategies are being seen across the industry, it was a natural progression to begin facilitating a broader discussion. This March, the AWWA hosted the 2013 Biological Treatment Symposium. In approximately 30 different technical sessions, the symposium focused on the benefits of engineered and passive biological treatment systems from research and utility perspectives. Topics ranged from public perception, performance and practices, unique applications (e.g. membrane pretreatment and anoxic treatment) as well as enhancements to widely-used processes like aerobic biologically active carbon filtration. More than 180 industry professionals participated in the Symposium.

CH2M HILL participation in the conference included presentations by me, Dr. Bill Bellamy, and attendance by several other CH2M HILL staff.

With the continuing water supply and capital improvement funding shortages persisting, it is imperative that we continue to strive for innovative and sustainable solutions on a global scale. The recent AWWA Biological Drinking Water Treatment Symposium is one more step towards that ultimate goal and a good start to encouraging water industry leaders to continue collaborating on this hot topic.

To learn more about biological drinking water treatment, contact us.

Ms. Meyer has more than 10 years of consulting and academic experience in drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment and reclamation, indirect potable reuse and industrial water treatment, in the United States and abroad. She received her master’s in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder and her bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire. Kerry served as the founder and first chair for the AWWA Biological Drinking Water committee.

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