Businesses today operate in an environment characterized by change, complexity, uncertainty, and anxiety (Friedman 2005). All employees in all industries must be empowered to achieve optimal performance through effective actions, decisions, and problem solving (Figallo and Rhine 2002). No industry is more typical of this than the wastewater industry. And the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) faces the same challenges common to all wastewater utilities: losing knowledgeable staff, renovating and replacing aging facilities, sustaining compliance, and constraining rate increases. DWSD management has recognized knowledge management (KM) as a key business strategy to help address these challenges, and has proactively focused resources to take KM throughout the organization, from management and first-line supervisors to field operations and maintenance staff.
Wastewater treatment plants are energy hogs. A 2013 study by the Electric Power Research Institute and Water Research Foundation reported that they consumed about 30 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, or about 0.8 percent of the total electricity used in the United States. Wastewater treatment’s high energy footprint is ironic because the organic matter in wastewater contains up to five times as much energy as the treatment plants use, according to the American Biogas Council. Reducing treatment...
Energy costs for water utilities are large, and growing
Energy is a significant cost for many water utilities, and costs are growing as more energy-intensive forms of water supply, including desalination, are being used. Energy is typically the second-largest utility budget item in developed countries, after labour. In many developing countries, energy can account for 70% or even more, of annual costs. But water and wastewater utilities can generate and export energy – in multiple forms.
Water utilities...
A pharmaceutical facility in the Caribbean had an existing wastewater treatment process that utilized a sequencing batch reactor (SBR). SBRs use large tanks to collect wastewater, then a number of different options can be employed to treat the water (such as chemicals addition, aeration and mixing). When an SBR aerobically breaks waste down, it can produce a high volume of air that needs to be treated before discharged into the atmosphere. Large catalytic oxidation (CATOX) units are often used to treat the off...
Water Innovations utilizes a 2-stage Cyanide Oxidation (CN) system that can treat from 2 GPM to 10 GPM. In the first stage of treatment, hypochlorite oxidizes cyanide to cyanate. It consists of two double-wall “Batch” Cyanide Oxidation Tank and an accumulation tank for cyanide-bearing rinse water, each tank equipped with one mixer. Wastewater containing cyanide will be pumped or flow by gravity into the first tank and then on to the second tank for complete cyanide oxidation. Both tanks have liquid...
The textile industry is a water consumption intensive industry. Water is utilized for cleaning the raw material, and for the different steps in the textile dyeing process.
Due to the effects of water scarcity and stricter environmental regulations, the cost of fresh water utilization has increased worldwide.
In addition, the textile industry is faced with pressure by government regulators to move toward sustainability, by reducing the consumption of water, while internal pressures to maintain or increase profit...
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