James Clark, currently a vice president and senior project manager at the Black & Veatch Corp., recognized his affinity for environmental engineering long before entering the professional water and wastewater industry.
Having been involved in a wide variety of water and wastewater projects over the years, Clark recently discussed with WWD a variety of challenges, past and present that are currently faced by the water and wastewater industry.
WWD: How did you become involved in the water and wastewater industry?
James Clark: Believe it or not, I knew in high school that I wanted to be an environmental engineer. I enjoyed math and science, and had a strong environmental bent. As an undergraduate I studied civil engineering but most of the elective courses I took were environmental courses.
In graduate school I was able to expand on that training so by the time I was finished I had taken almost all of the environmental engineering classes offered at Washington State University. I was fortunate to be able to work on a funded research project in graduate school, which involved working at the local wastewater treatment plant. I found that I particularly enjoyed the public health aspects and environmental benefits of the wastewater treatment profession.
WWD: What are some the water quality-related projects you have worked on in recent years?
Clark: One of the projects of which I am most proud is the city of Los Angeles Hyperion Treatment Plant Full Secondary expansion and upgrade.
I was very involved in most aspects of that project, from the facilities plan to commissioning, and was a full time job for 10 years. This project was named by the American Public Works Association as one of the 10 most outstanding public works project of the 20th Century, along with the Panama Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hoover Dam.
It also won the American Academy of Environmental Engineers Superior Achievement in Environmental Engineering Excellence award.
On the drinking water side, I have assisted the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California with a variety of projects related to its Oxidation Retrofit Program—adding ozone disinfection to filtration plants.
I also managed design activities for the Greater Vancouver Water District ozone disinfection facilities for one of three water sources and assisted with the design of a new filtration plant that is currently under construction for the other two sources.
I am currently working with the Orange County Sanitation District on their capital improvements program, including managing the design of a 60 mgd activated sludge system at the district’s Fountain Valley treatment plant.
The effluent from this facility will be further treated by the Orange County Water District in its Groundwater Replenishment System for various recycled water uses.
WWD: What are some the challenges you faced during these projects and how were these problems resolved?
Clark: Some of the bigger challenges are related to getting all of the stakeholders to agree on what is needed and how to best go about providing a solution. It often takes numerous meetings with the public, environmental groups and regulatory representatives, as well as operations and maintenance staff to ensure a successful project.
Keeping projects on track can also be a challenge. Sometimes during design, new issues surface that require attention and can sidetrack the path to the goal line.
An example is a proposed change in a regulation that, if adopted, could impact the treated water quality requirements. Managing a project under changing conditions to maintain a schedule and budget that was established before a preliminary design has been completed can be difficult.
WWD: From your perspective, what would you do to improve the water and wastewater industry?
Clark: Our industry as a whole is fantastic. But, as an industry we could do a better job of telling the public how important our work is. We are essentially the guardians of public health and have more of an impact on the daily lives of more people and aquatic animals than any other profession.
However, we are often painted in the press and by the public as polluters. That perception needs to change. As one of my colleagues said, he has yet to see a newspaper headline that reads, “Sewage Plant Ran Swell Today.”
We do an outstanding job of balancing ever–shrinking budgets while meeting more stringent treatment regulations, safe water is available from the taps in our homes for a fraction of a cent a gallon, and we are always finding ways to stretch it farther through research efforts and innovation. Our story needs to get better publicity.
WWD: Please describe some of the trends you envision for the water and wastewater industry.
Clark: Technology advances are allowing us to find compounds in water that we previously did not know were there, and in concentrations that can be very small. The impact on human health by these “new” compounds at those concentrations might not be known, yet we are tasked with trying to understand what we need to do to continue to provide safe water to consumers.
Further, water resources are finite; we have the same quantity of water today that was present when the dinosaurs walked the earth. As the less developed world continues to develop and as population everywhere increases, water consumption will increase. We need to find ways to do more with less and to improve efficiency in the water we treat. Using water more than once (water recycling) before disposing of it will become increasingly important. More space-efficient technologies, such as membranes, will become more commonplace.
We could even envision a time when point-of-use devices are required in the home for the less than 5% of water used as potable water, thereby not requiring the highest quality treatment for water used for watering lawns, washing clothes, or toilet flushing.
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