SAN ANTONIO, TX — The seventh Emerging Water Technology Symposium returned as an in-person event for the first time in four years, bringing together industry, manufacturing, water utility and government leaders from around the world. A focus of this year’s event was on resources communities require to build safe and resilient plumbing systems as well as meet the growing list of challenges to America’s drinking water.
The May 10-11 event at the Westin Riverwalk, San Antonio was co-convened by the Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE), the American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE), the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) and Plumbing Manufacturers International (PMI).
Safer, More Resilient Systems
“As an industry we have a number of high priority research needs that relate to water quality as well as water and energy efficiency,” IAPMO Executive Vice President of Advocacy and Research Pete DeMarco explained in discussing the importance of the symposium. “This year’s event brought together some of the brightest minds industry has to offer all focused on how we make our plumbing and mechanical systems safer and more resilient to meet the challenges ahead.”
“This symposium provides a much-needed platform for stakeholders across the industry to gather, discuss the latest research, and then discuss how we can take action,” he said. “It is a highly valuable event, and I look forward to seeing it continue to grow in the future.”
PMI CEO Kerry Stackpole spoke at the event and said the relationships between the organizations represented at EWTS had likely never been more important than they are now. He said that while the best and brightest among us devised medical solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, the plumbing industry also played an important role.
Stackpole said wildfires, flooding and drought that different regions of the United States are experiencing put those in the industry in a position to shape the future.
“Your active engagement here, in your communities back home, and in the marketplace of ideas, where we will have opportunities to share ideas with one another, will make all the difference,” he said. “You actually are able to turn the dial on this, and I think that’s really exciting.”
Keynote Speakers
Puente’s presentation looked at three ways in which SAWS, which serves 2 million customers over four counties, uses innovation to deliver water to its customers: advanced metering deployment, “smart” manhole covers, and conservation.
“It’s all about innovation,” he said. “And I think if you talk to our employees, although they will tell you that it’s their idea, we know that they got their idea from coming to events like this. Every good idea, you should expect it to be stolen, to be used by someone else, and you should be flattered by that. I think anything that you look at here started somewhere else, and we went to conferences in other cities and were able to bring back the ideas to SAWS to really get the innovation aspect in this.”
In delivering his keynote address remotely from Jakarta, Indonesia, Johnston spoke about the global water and sanitation crisis’s impact on low-income households—one in nine people lack access to safe water, one in three do not have access to a toilet—and some potential solutions. Working with financial institutions and water utilities, as well as sister company WaterEquity, Water.org helps bring affordable financing to people in need of water.
“In about 19 years of work on the ground, we’ve seen water and sanitation access reach more than 45 million people through more 10 million microloans disbursed to households with capital of $3.7 billion mobilized,” he said.
Presentations and Panel Discussions
Another speaker, Special Pathogens Laboratory Executive Vice President/Founder Dr. Janet Stout, looked at approaches and products for mitigating the risk of Legionellosis in point-of-use and point-of-entry building water systems. Improved water management requires knowledgeable Legionella prevention and water service providers, which can come from certification to ASSE/IAPMO/ANSI 12080 for Legionella Water Safety and Management Personnel.
Over the two days of the symposium 28 podium presentations were delivered on such diverse topics as Hot Water Circulation -- Benefits, Design and Technologies (Frank Schmidt, International Market Developer, Kemper) and The Role of Safety and Performance Requirements in Reinventing the Toilet (Sun Gil Kim, Senior Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
The second day saw another panel discussion featuring Ron Burke, CEO and President, AWE; Dain Hansen, Executive Vice President, Government Relations, IAPMO; Ed Osann, Senior Water Policy Analyst, NDRC; and Stephanie Salmon, Washington Representative, PMI. The panel's topic was Implications of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on Drinking Water and Wastewater, with Nicole Krawcke, Chief Editor of Plumbing & Mechanical and PM Engineer taking on moderating duties.
IAPMO will provide sessions from the EWTS on-demand in the near future. To be notified when they are available, register at www.ewts.org/2022-ewts.