“I don’t think there is anything out there like Klir.”—Keith Abercrombie, Chief Operating Officer, Santa Clarita Valley Water

At A Glance

• As SCV Water amalgamated three water divisions under one agency, Klir supported a seamless operational transition by organizing over 150 permits into a single collaborative dashboard.
• Complete visibility for management into live status of all permits has eliminated all risk associated with specific employees holding permitting information.
• With permitting tasks fully managed through Klir, no deadlines are missed.

The Challenge​

In 2018, Santa Clarita Valley Water (SCV Water) was managing a massive organizational shift—amalgamating three separate water divisions into one.Among the many hurdles that Chief Operating Officer Keith Abercrombie and his team were facing: the complex task of understanding which permits were being maintained across the three divisions.With an aging workforce (80% of which is over 50) and a few key team members set to retire in the coming years, Keith and his team were driven to look for a new way to handle their permits.In the old system, everyone knew who was responsible for managing a specific permit, but a change in the overall structure meant a change in responsibilities for many employees.Each permit had requirements to fulfill for a key regulatory body, and not reporting or complying would mean that the utility could be subject to a fine or penalty—which in many cases could be quite material.Without the support of a central permitting database, and with the recent increase in permit quantity and complexity, there was simply too much risk.

The Solution

Keith and the team at SCV Water turned to Klir to pull together and help coordinate permitting information for the newly-amalgamated team.

The Klir permit management solution takes the risk of managing and complying with permits out of the individual’s hands by centralizing this information andautomating the tasks and activities needed to comply across the organization.“Klir has helped us manage and track permits and to be in a position that we are comfortable in knowing exactly what we are doing with our permits. We are not at the risk of screw ups, which can be embarrassing and costly,” says Keith.With permits across the organization now managed in Klir:

• Contributors can easily keep track of deadlines and activities with automatic triggers and alerts
• All data and requirements for 150+ permits are gathered into one permit management system
• Employees can continue to work the exact same way as before because the Klir system builds onto existing systems and processes

“Some staff, like supervisors, worry that they could miss a deadline. Having the ability for software to tee up the events in advance, and not just for the person whose responsibility it is, but for someone else in case they are out, gives us peace of mind,” says Abercrombie.

The Impact

With a single source of truth for all permits, SCV Water has:

• Eliminated the risk of having a specific employee handle all permitting information. Now, permit management will remain consistent when people retire or new people join the team.
• Automated all permit-related tasks with task scheduling and notifications sent to key employees.
• Prioritized workflows thanks to easy visibility into work on-hand, so that no deadlines are missed.

“It is a lot more than automation, it is a central database and I now know where to go to find the data I need," says Abercrombie.

How Klir can help

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of wastewater management—including compliance, sampling and more—into an easy to use dashboard.Learn moreabout how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Serving Southern Nevada and the world famous Las Vegas strip, the Southern Nevada Water Authority provides potable water to 2.3 million residents and 40 million annual tourists.

With a mandate to be the world’s most efficient drinking water utility, the SNWA relies on Klir to be more proactive and efficient when it comes to permit and Safe Drinking Water Act compliance.

“Being in compliance is extremely important. But being able to demonstrate that in an effective and efficient way is where this tool really takes our compliance perspective to the next level,” says Dave Johnson, Deputy General Manager of Operations at the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Las Vegas Valley Water District. “The Klir application helps us to sleep better at night knowing that we can demonstrate that compliance.”

The Challenge

As a public utility, the SNWA has no room for error when it comes to permit compliance and utility operations.

With thousands of permits spread across the organization in different departments and different divisions, and 300,000 samples required annually to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the SNWA set out to identify a technology that would allow it to bring all of its permit tracking and sampling monitoring together into one location.

“We have a big responsibility to the community, and that is to ensure a safe and secure drinking water system. Klir provides us a tool to make sure that our water is safe and secure,” says Frank Milligan, Director, Environmental Health & Safety & Corporate Security at the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

The Solution

• Klir provides peace of mind for management with complete visibility into the utility’s live status of compliance.
• Centralizing 1000+ regulatory permits into a single dashboard eliminates information silos.
• SNWA analyzes over 300,000 water quality samples every year. Klir provides a tool to track and manage that sampling data, allowing the SNWA to ensure its in compliance and meeting ratepayers’ expectations each day.
• With time saved on compliance admin, staff time can be redirected towards high-value proactive work.

The Impact

The Klir drinking water management platform allows SNWA to consolidate and manage all of its 1000+ permits and 300,000+ water samples in one place.

• With a single software system to consolidate all of its permits and Safe Drinking Water Act sampling outcomes, the SNWA can deliver compliance more efficiently.
• Management has complete visibility into the organization’s real-time compliance position, all within a single dashboard.
• Permits are kept current and legal with no deadlines missed.
• Staff time that would otherwise be spent on administrative tasks can be redirected to high value work such as conducting inspections, or hazard abatement action.

“The real value proposition in the Klir software is that it allows us to become much more efficient in how we deal with these massive amounts of data.” Dave Johnson
—Deputy General Manager of Operations, SNWA and LVVWD

How Klir Can Help

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of water management—including compliance, sampling, permitting and more—into an easy to use dashboard.

Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and record-keeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide system-wide visibility into your water system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

You have dozens of unanswered calls on your phone, and your desktop is overflowing with support tickets. Your GM needs your help recovering files from their laptop, and you aren’t even an hour into your workday. Forget about an IT strategy—you're just focused on staying afloat. Sound familiar?When you’re an IT professional at a large water or wastewater utility, staying on top of day to day tasks can feel like a challenge. If you aren’t attending to a deluge of support requests or fighting fires, you’re worried about keeping legacy systems online or attending to a backlog of security updates. Instead of preparing for the future, you’re just worried about staying afloat.Rather than let this tidal wave wear you down, we’ve developed a few strategies to help you stem the flow, give your team room to breathe, and implement practices that deliver exceptional service in the long run.

1. Make Self-Service Support as Easy as Possible

Few things are as frustrating for an IT team as having to field the same question over and over again. It gets in the way of more important work, and if you aren’t careful it can make the rest of your organization unreasonably dependent on IT to solve non-technical issues.That’s why one of the quickest ways to stem the flow of repetitive support tickets is to anticipate them with a great internal FAQ, wiki or central knowledge repository—basically somewhere you can direct users who have questions you’ve answered many times before.Building out one of these resources can have implications that reach beyond IT. In fact, the average employee spends about 9.3 hours a week poring over email threads and other communications searching for internal company information they need to do their jobs.In addition to cutting down on support tickets, an IT knowledge repository can play a crucial role in onboarding and make your organization more friendly to new users in general, create discipline around which tools your organization uses, and also offers you the opportunity to proactively communicate a digital strategy to the rest of the organization in the form of a digital playbook.

2. Get the Rest of Your Organization Involved in Your IT Strategy

Another great way to anticipate and fix problems earlier is to involve team members more closely in your IT strategy by establishing a committee or council composed of directors across the different departments in your organization.Getting managers to flag and discuss broader IT problems in this way won’t just cut down on support tickets. It also lets you offload some of the burden of implementing your digital strategy, gets everyone on the same page when it comes to tools, and will make staff in general feel more invested in your IT strategy in general.Involving people in your IT strategy this way also helps you avoid so-called custom “shadow IT” initiatives pursued by impatient managers. These can be terrible for IT workflow: they introduce tools and systems that the rest of the organization is unfamiliar with, emboldens other departments to do the same, and could bring your organization to a grinding halt if the manager responsible ever goes on vacation.

3. Choose Low-Maintenance Tools

When procuring new software, keep an eye out for tools that empower your users to be self-sufficient, rather than having to depend on you or an external consultant for instruction.

Use Cloud-Based Tools by Default

A great way to do this is to default to cloud-based tools, which require less time to set up, don’t have a backend for you to worry about, and are often designed to be more intuitive and customer-facing.

Talk to Your Users

Are there any tools or software that staff at your company already use privately, or have experience using at other jobs? If so, implementing them officially could be a great way to save onboarding time and make your users even more self-sufficient.

Explore ‘No Code’ Solutions

Another way to make the software your organization uses more friendly to team members is to leverage so-called ‘no code’ solutions, which offer non-technical team members the chance to understand and even contribute to your team’s technical processes and systems.

Update Your Legacy Systems

If your organization depends on outdated, clunky legacy systems, they’re probably depending on you to put out the fires that those systems cause as well.

If there’s a system or software that takes up a particularly large chunk of your time, consider flagging it with management. Make sure to consider and communicate the resources you might save by replacing it with a more contemporary solution.

4. Automate, Where Reasonable

Automate as many of the mundane tasks involved in your day-to-day work as possible. Once you’ve implemented an FAQ or internal wiki, for example, try complementing it with a support chatbot that can answer basic support questions. If you rely on email or direct messaging to process support tickets, consider implementing a system purpose-built to handle support tickets for IT like Zendesk.

5. Consolidate, and Work With Vendors Who Support Multiple Functions

Another pain point that IT operators at utilities face is the excessively complicated tangle of software solutions they're currently expected to support.To this end, application consolidation is key when it comes time to start overhauling and procuring new systems.As much as you can, avoid overlap and redundancy in your systems by picking vendors that support multiple functions, rather than just one.Take Klir, for example. To complement your procurement process, Klir offers modules to manage permitting, sampling, inspections and more. These modules are available à la carte, or can be combined as a complete water management system.Klir doesn’t just enable utilities to remediate environmental and human health risks quickly: it also helps managers decide where and when to invest and surfaces opportunities for efficiencies that are difficult to see with spreadsheets or more opaque systems.

How Klir can help

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of water management into an easy to use dashboard. Learn moreabout how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Until a few years ago, no single piece of software brought together all of the information and functions crucial to running a water and wastewater utility.

Clunky legacy solutions often fell short or left gaps. Operators had to make due with haphazard, improvised solutions instead like:

• ‍Manual SCADA Exports
• Post-it Notes
• Desk Drawers Stuffed with Documents
• Spreadsheets That Don’t Sync Up

But as more of our work moves online and low-cost digital tools have become widely available, the excuses for managing mission-critical information in this way are quickly running out.

Modern cloud-based software like Klir is making it easier than ever to capture what happens in our organizations faster, more reliably, and more safely than spreadsheets. All within a single, easy to use, dedicated platform.

As more water utility operators engage in digital transformation projects, it pays to ask the question: what exactly are we missing out on by sticking to our spreadsheets?

1. Hemorrhaging Critical Information and Losing Work

Spreadsheets are a leaky medium in general: when we start relying on them to organize critical processes or store large amounts of data, some of it inevitably gets lost.

‍Permitting is a common example of this. Many larger utilities often find themselves having to manage, catalogue, and maintain thousands of permits at a time. But when that documentation lives in dozens of different spreadsheets scattered across dozens of different computers, permitting data often gets duplicated, overwritten, misplaced, or lost entirely. That's because spreadsheets:​

• ‍Often rely on memory, specifically the memory of the person who initially created, formatted, named, and stored the spreadsheet.‍
• Become increasingly unstandardized as team members come up with their own private ways of storing information in them.‍
• Don’t automatically sync leaving documentation prone to confusing duplication, errors, and accidental deletion.
• Force team members into an opaque environment defined by information silos, rather than a single source of truth.

As the water industry confronts the ‘silver tsunami,’ the pressure for utilities to come up with a less leaky system for managing permitting and other kinds of mission-critical information is only increasing.

2. Losing Time on Repetitive Tasks

Spreadsheets tend to be popular with smaller or new organizations because they appear, at least initially, to take less time to set up than a dedicated information management system.

But the irony is that as the amount of information we store in them increases, spreadsheets take more time to maintain, not less. That's because spreadsheets:​

• Don’t automatically populate, forcing employees to spend more time on data entry, pulling them away from more important tasks.
• Are difficult or impossible to integrate with other systems, such as scheduling software, email, GIS, SCADA, LIMS—and even other spreadsheets.
• Aren’t custom built for water. As the complexity and variety of tasks in our spreadsheets increases, the more work they take to set up and maintain.

3. Creating Data Hesitancy

Another symptom of spreadsheet reliance is that your staff is never fully confident in their information. That's because spreadsheets:​

• ‍Live offline, decreasing accessibility and transparency.
• Belong to different owners, increasing the risk of duplication and redundancy.
• Have no restrictions around version control, making mistakes hard to flag or trace back to their source.
• Usually contain out-of-date data, as they lack real-time capabilities.

4. Contain out-of-Date Data, as They Lack Real-Time Capabilities​

In addition to being unreliable, spreadsheets simply aren’t as secure as the purpose-built tools that water operators have at their disposal today.

Whether you’re sharing spreadsheets over email or constantly swapping Excel files using local drives, spreadsheets create an information ecosystem that is difficult to secure, leaving your data vulnerable.

Why Does Software Beat Spreadsheets Every Time?​

Enter modern cloud-based water operating systems (OS) like Klir. We fix these problems by providing a secure, centralized repository for critical reporting data and information crucial to plant operations.

By liberating information from spreadsheets and managing it this way, water utilities can:

1. Cut Down on Data Loss and Ambiguity

Dedicated platforms create a central, secure, and reliable collection point for all of your information, enabling you to:

• ‍Simplify reporting and cataloguing, reducing the risk of duplicate or lost information. ‍
• Reduce risk of regulatory violations by processing data in real time and creating a reliable source for compliance information. ‍
• Liberate and preserve institutional knowledge by putting all of the utility’s critical assets in one easy to access location.

2. Save Time Through Automation​​

Software like Klir is built for tasks like permitting and sampling, making it easier to automate data collection and analysis, enabling users to:

• ‍Automatically track and update tasks and targets in real time.‍
• Generate actionable reports with minimal effort.
• Rely on built-in failsafes that protect and ensure the integrity of your assets.

3. Enable Collaborative, Confident Asset Building​

Unlike spreadsheets, dedicated software platforms enable collaboration and information exchange in real time, creating an environment that encourages staff to build and take care of information assets, rather than making it a chore.

Solutions like Klir allow water operators to build and share a single source of truth with their colleagues, removing the possibility of ambiguity and duplicates and giving operators confidence in their data.

4. Better Accommodate Growth and Find New Efficiencies​​

Using spreadsheets is a bit like looking at your organization through a keyhole. Centralizing and cataloguing your information using a dedicated platform, on the other hand, is like zooming out to get the full picture.

Aggregating information this way and looking at it through intuitive analytics tools opens up an entirely new world of possibilities for plant operators.

For the first time, you can see where trends intersect to identify cause/effect relationships and gain efficiency by identifying overlap in your internal processes. And as the amount of information your organization generates grows, those insights will only grow stronger.

The Bottom Line

Although spreadsheets are a lightweight, easy to use starting point, they quickly become a breeding ground for errors and data loss as demands grow. The time we spend maintaining them increases, and reporting confidence decreases.

Frustrated with spreadsheets? It’s time to start managing your operations data in a sustainable way that is built for the long term.

Klir is a dedicated platform that gives your team complete confidence that you’re compliant today, so you can plan for tomorrow.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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Municipalities and utilities have turned to electronic reporting tools (ERTs) to streamline, consolidate and automate their water and wastewater data processes for decades.

These tools cut down on lost or duplicate data, provide users with automated alerts, and generally make sampling a much less painful and time-consuming process.

At the same time, water managers know that sampling is just one part of the equation.

No part of a successful water management operation can function in isolation from another—but that’s also precisely what happens when utilities need a different application to manage each aspect of the water process, whether it be water quality or effluent monitoring, permitting, or inspections.

Adopting a truly unified approach to water management might be the only way that municipalities and utilities can protect themselves from another problem: too many tools.

To illustrate how, we’re going to compare two different water sampling solutions today:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based water management platform—and more specifically Klir’s sampling capabilities, which delivering fast and up to date sampling and water quality results to decision makers at water and wastewater utilities.

WaterTrax

An electronic reporting tool provided by Aquatic Informatics.

Klir Water Management Software: A Quick Intro

Until recently, the information that operators and managers at water utilities needed to do their jobs was fragmented, dispersed across numerous systems, incomplete, or otherwise difficult to access.

Launched in 2018, Klir is the first system to bring these disparate functions together into one complete SaaS based software suite.

Klir's Drinking Water Management platform allows water quality teams to manage monitoring plans and sampling outcomes against relevant legislation and regulations such as the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Meanwhile, Klir's Wastewater Management Platform allows treatment plant operators to manage effluent reporting and DMR reports, so they can stay compliant with key regulation such as NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System).

Instead of relying on a mishmash of different systems and software, Klir brings the entire team onto one platform and pulls in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for sampling activities utility-wide.

This allows operators to

• See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.
• Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, to generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.
• Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs, operational limits, and numerous other types of limits will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

WaterTrax: A Brief Overview

WaterTrax was first launched in 2002 with the goal of helping utilities and municipalities detect adverse water quality events earlier and faster, offering quick access to current and historical data, automatic alerts, and a consolidated repository for lab data, all in a web-based system that didn’t require and special hardware or software to run.

Today WaterTrax’s focus is water and wastewater management, and the typical user will use the tool to do three things: set up a sampling schedule, set up their water infrastructure, and begin consuming data from labs and field samples.

In 2017, WaterTrax was acquired by Vancouver’s Aquatic Informatics company, where it exists alongside a family of applications purpose-built for different aspects of the water management process, including:

1. Aquarius Samples, an environmental lab and field sample data production tool.
2. Linko, an Industrial Pretreatment and FOG solution.
3. Tokay, a backflow prevention and cross-connection control tool.

One Platform vs. a Family of Separate Apps

While WaterTrax and the Klir sampling module might have a lot of overlap, the biggest difference between the two is Klir’s unified platform approach to water, as opposed to Aquatic Informatics’ à la carte approach.

While Klir users can move seamlessly from managing water and wastewater processes to other key processes such as permitting, inspections, asset management, and backflow or cross-connections, WaterTrax users are forced to switch to a different Aquatic Informatics application every time.

The Klir system unifies sampling and water monitoring alongside permitting, inspections, asset management, and backflow or cross-connections. This allows utilities to:

Break Down Silos

Reducing contradictory data, enabling constant information sharing across departments and teams, and reducing knowledge-loss during employee retirements or absences.

Spend Less time on Implementation

Klir allows utilities to train multiple teams on a single system and manage multiple process in one central software system.

Work With a Single Source of Truth

As your organization grows and its data needs increase, your ability to create and work from a single point of truth will become increasingly important.

The Klir Water Management Platform in Action

In addition to the benefits of Klir’s platform approach, there are also specific areas where Klir allows utilities to manage sampling and water quality outcomes with ease:

1. Powerful Monitoring Plans and Sample Scheduling

Klir unifies monitoring plans and sample scheduling across the utility, and making those functions available across working groups (whether it be compliance, water quality, operations, or treatment facilities).

Klir is a SaaS-based program that can be securely accessed on any device, anywhere, and is designed with an intuitive user interface so that any delegated user in your organization can set up their monitoring plan, select what they want to monitor against, track sampling outcomes against relevant parameters, and provision their plan with a set of recurring tasks.

2. Better Lab Data Processing

Klir currently provides users with numerous ways of entering data into the system, including:

• Manual frontend data entry
• Frontend data import through the import tool
• SCADA import
• SFTP file transfers
• Sample results APIs (future)

Klir is also developing a sampling API that will expand even further on users’ ability to get data into the Klir system easily.

3. Powerful Customization and Automation Functions

With automatic alerts and notifications triggered by sampling processes, Klir allows operators to create custom rules for almost any process or parameter in their water data management system, making it a powerful automation tool.

Klir vs. WaterTrax: Feature-by-Feature

4. It’s Built for Maximum Accessibility

Unlike most legacy water systems, Klir focuses on providing a user-friendly, intuitive and accessible experience that is designed to be used by anyone within the utility, regardless of experience. Klir makes your systems more transparent, not less, making it the clear choice for readability and ease of use out of the box.

5. One Product, One Vision

Klir is unique among competing water management platforms which because it was built as a unified water management solution from the ground up.

This means Klir allows users to avoid the pitfalls commonly associated with legacy software suites—including duplicate data, overlapping processes, multiple licenses, uneven product development, and lack of cross-app integration—while ensuring that your team can be trained and brought onto a single, unified system.

6. Collaboration and Task Management Tools

Klir allows teams to manage all of their tasks in-app, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration and project management across the organization.

Meanwhile, legacy water management systems often don’t include internal collaboration or communications tools, forcing teams to come up with their own off-platform solutions (usually email).

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

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How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

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How to customize formatting for each rich text

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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"We used to have a plant manager who would say he'd put it on a Triscuit and eat it. I don't know that I'd do that, but it certainly wouldn't harm you."

That’s what Ryan Cerrato, an employee at New York-based composting company WeCare Organics, told a Vice journalist about his company’s compost in a recent documentary.

WeCare makes compost from biosolids—human waste that has passed through sewage treatment—which it then sells to farmers, nurseries, and gardeners as high-quality fertilizer. While most American consumers might not know it, biosolids are becoming an increasingly important part of our water treatment and agricultural systems.

As wastewater utilities face growing pressures to find cost savings while also increasing environmental outcomes, improving the quality of biosolids is becoming more important than ever before.

So how exactly can treatment plant managers get more out of biosolids while spending less? It’s a question that might very well come down to data.

What are biosolids?

Biosolids are solid waste that have been treated and reclaimed from the water system.

About half of all biosolids produced in the U.S. today are recycled and used as fertilizer. But not all biosolids are recycled: of the roughly 4.75 million dry metric tons (dmt) the country produced in 2019, a little under half ended up incinerated, landfilled, or stored as waste. With the right treatment processes, all of that waste could be put to more beneficial uses.

That’s where the question of biosolids quality comes in.

What are Class A and Class B biosolids?

The EPA’s 40 CFR Part 503 is the guiding star for wastewater operators and other processors looking to gauge the quality of their biosolids. This framework breaks biosolids down into two classes:

Class A biosolids have been treated and tested for pathogens and deemed safe enough to use in agriculture, gardening, and landscaping. They’re the kind that companies like WeCare buy from utilities, process, and resell: good for the environment and crucial to creating a closed loop, zero-waste system.

Class B biosolids are any that don’t make Class A. They might be safe enough to use in some applications, but they also contain detectable pathogens and/or high concentrations of metals like arsenic, chromium, and mercury that might make them unsuitable for growing food or soil remediation.

While Class A biosolids are an asset, Class B are expensive to dispose of and transport, and might pose a health risk for people working with them. So getting that B grade up to an A is worth more than just extra credit.

How to test biosolids

Most wastewater treatment plant operators have their eye on three different kinds of data when they make decisions about what to do with biosolids:

• Sampling results, which are conducted at various stages of the treatment process and analyze water and biosolids for pathogens, drugs, metals, and other contaminants.
• Continuous monitoring data from certain pieces of plant equipment for variables like temperature and pressure.
• End product data, like class (A/B), weight, water content, transportation and disposal cost, etc.

For decades, plant operators have relied on legacy infrastructure to monitor this data and make decisions in the biosolids treatment process. But modern cloud-based platforms are giving operators the ability to view and analyze this information, so they can spot trends and act sooner.

Systems like Klir merge real-time data from sources likesupervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to reveal opportunities to improve the product quality while managing harmful contaminants from the outset.

The risks of lagging data in biosolids processing

Working in spreadsheets and SCADA systems can feel a bit like pulling teeth. They’re slow, opaque, unintuitive, and often few people at an organization have the ability to pull reports.

These delays mean that operators are often reviewing the data long after it was processed—sometimes a month later, and have little means of intervening in the biosolids treatment process until it’s too late.  

These lagging data sources aren’t just an annoying time suck: they can also pose a genuine threat to your operation.

Those risks include:

1. Releasing contaminated biosolids

When there’s a lag between the time a sampling test is completed, and the time that an operator can manually query and interpret those results, there’s a lot that can be missed or go wrong, including the possibility that those solids leave the plant before the test results come back.

Those kinds of mistakes can be costly—nine agencies received hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from the EPA in 2019 for approving contaminated biosolids.

2. Reporting and record-keeping errors

Using Excel to deal with ever-larger data sets opens you up to the possibility of data loss, which can cause major reporting problems.

Filing a false report, even by accident, carries a fine of up to $10,000 and up to 2 years in prison. Meanwhile, willful violations carry a criminal fine of $5,000 to $50,000 per day of violation and up to 3 years in prison.

3. Data access problems

Your organization’s data should belong to the organization. But if team members are constantly creating their own workarounds to address the limitations of legacy software and spreadsheets, that can create problems around data ownership, especially if one of those team members is absent or leaves the organization.

How real-time data analysis drives better biosolids

For treatment plant operators, intuitive platforms like Klir are making it easier to access and display vital data and make decisions quickly.

The result? Treatment plants save on transportation costs, while minimizing biosolid waste.

Here are the key ways that water & wastewater analytics software help drive better outcomes:

1. Reduce costs and improve product quality

Biosolids are heavy, and the more water a treatment plant can extract from them, (known as “cake dryness”) the lower their transportation costs. With real-time data analytics, plant operators can take the right actions to lower transportation costs and identify efficiencies that might otherwise be invisible.

Real time data lets you:

• Proactively influence the product outcome with an end-to-end view of operations
• Develop key insights into product grading
• Perform ongoing weight vs. cost analysis
• Set budgets to meet cost and quality goals

2. Better report design and data collection

Displaying data in a format that is easy to understand and ‘ready to go’ decreases the amount of time workers must spend processing and understanding their data while also encouraging and rewarding better data collection.

3. Stay in compliance and predict problems before they happen

Data analytics dashboards help operators and managers identify any failures or problems that might come up, cutting down on costly compliance errors.

Quicker and more up-to-date sampling results also mean that plant operators can focus on forecasting trends and anticipating problems rather than constantly working backwards to trace where a contaminant came from. The result? Treatment plant teams can:

• Stay compliant with real-time quality monitoring
• Receive automatic warnings when contaminants approach or exceed limits
• Proactively triage issues and intervene before contaminated product leaves the facility

4. Increase efficiency

Automated data analysis frees plant managers from data detective work, and gives them new insights on how to continuously improve their processes, allowing them to:

• Analyze sampling data in real time, no queries required
• Spot problems before they happen
• Ensure monthly and annual reports are always consistent
• Perform reporting work in a fraction of the time

5. Break down data silos

Providing plant operators and employees with clear visuals and a holistic data view can help dismantle a culture of reactivity by de-siloing information. The result is a holistic picture of operations across the plant.

With transparent and interactive dashboards, managers and employees can:

• ‘Slice and dice' data to meet their business needs
• Confidently depend on a single source of truth
• Create an open forum for communication

6. Futureproofing

Wastewater organizations that move to cloud-based systems to manage data across their plants are in a better position to anticipate future changes to biosolids regulations and industry standards. That’s because they can easily add new reporting criteria and scheduling requirements, merge in new data sources, or add in new parameters to instantly spot troubling maximum contaminant levels (MCLs).

Improve your biosolids with Klir

Klir’s treatment plants module is designed to help wastewater treatment operators access real-time insights, so they can reduce the cost of managing biosolids and effluents while improving their environmental performance.

Interested in learning how Klir can help your facility improve its performance? Talk to one of our experts.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Located on the Tualatin River Basin, Clean Water Services in Oregon serves a population of over 600,000 residents in urban Washington County and businesses including Nike and Intel. A fitting name, Clean Water Services is internationally recognized as a leader for holistic watershed management, and a One Water approach that integrates wastewater and stormwater collection and treatment.

But it wasn’t always this way. This is the story of how a polluted river, reduced to just a stream, spawned what today has become one of the most innovative water systems in America.

In this article, we’ll dive into key lessons from CWS’ digital transformation, and how it flows from a commitment to watershed restoration.

Start Your Digital Transformation Today

Necessity breeds innovation

Then...

In the late 1960s, Washington County’s water was in crisis. The Tualatin River, the area’s only river, was choked with pollution. Twenty-six treatment plants were discharging contaminated wastewater into area streams, provoking a moratorium on any new development in the region. The viability of the entire region was in question.

In the summer, the river was so small in some places, you could stand across it.

By 1970, the people of Washington County voted two-to-one in favor of creating a regional sewer utility—one of the first in the state. The vote signaled the community’s early commitment to protecting public health and the local environment through clean water.

And now...

Fast forward to today, and Clean Water Services’ CEO Diane Taniguchi-Dennis will tell you that everything the organization does aims to protect public health while enhancing the natural environment of Oregon's Tualatin River Watershed.

That means that CWS’ job doesn’t stop at the treatment plant: it includes building salmon habitat, planting a canopy that mitigates evaporation, and offering conservation education.

As organic as it all might sound, these initiatives aren’t driven by intuition. They’re backed by cold, hard data, and a commitment to innovation.

For Washington Country, there’s no other way: this is about securing a safe water supply for generations to come.

Manage Water Quality Data with Klir

Digital transformation requires culture change

In an industry historically focused on pipes and pumps, CWS has learned to stop viewing itself as a team of engineers, and instead as 400 water entrepreneurs working together to leverage science and technology through the power of Mother Nature.

“In my experience, significant sustainable advances in smart water are only possible through culture change,” says Taniguchi-Dennis. “It's really about a mindset focused on learning, thriving, and growing that drives digital transformation.”

The defining features of CWS’ culture of innovation include:

1. Practicing agility and change readiness.
2. Becoming less hierarchical and more networked.
3. Bridging gaps between different subject matter expertise via multidisciplinary project teams.

It’s a commitment that cascades across every level of the organization, but is perhaps best illustrated by the tech team.

Transform IT into a Digital Solutions team

Innovating at the watershed-scale depends on having the right leaders around the table. That’s why CWS has transformed its IT department from a service center into a strategic business partner.

The Digital Solutions team, led by Dr. Ting Lu, is a confluence of Information Technology (IT), Operations Technology (OT), and Engineering Technology (ET) that supports the organization on everything from permit compliance to optimizing water for the region.

This team’s impact has been transformative, having introduced:

• Dashboards to support transparency & decision making throughout the district
• Real-time controls to optimize storm runoff capacity
• Automated vehicle-locator technology, sewer sensors and GIS data integration for data driven operations
• Technology to optimize basin planning and risk management
• Virtual collaboration and learning platforms
• Open-source, low cost IoT sensor solutions

And they’re not stopping there.

Dr. Lu shared her vision for the next decade: “We would like to be using smart water and digital twin systems to provide insights and operational and planning decision support to not only our gray infrastructure, but also integrating our green infrastructure, natural systems and the watershed together at scale.”

Start with the basics

Like any good digital strategy, CWS started with the basics: compliance.

In 1991, the organization was targeting an aggressive Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) target of 0.1 milligrams of phosphorus per liter, which meant they needed to be operating some of the most advanced wastewater treatment facilities of the time.

The effort was so paramount, it provoked its own sing-song slogan: “Point one in ninety one!”

So, when CWS later ran into a thermal compliance issue based on excess ammonia in the water from fisheries, they saw the opportunity to rise above their regulatory duty and take control of their own destiny.

“We realized that just focusing on the water chemistry or water quality wasn't going to be enough to really meet the promise that the Clean Water Act brings to us, which is fishable, swimmable, drinkable waters,” says Taniguchi-Dennis.

Instead of putting chillers at the treatment facility outfalls—where the benefit would have washed away just a few miles downstream—CWS decided to look at the problem holistically across the watershed. The solution? Planting trees and shrubs along the river and its tributaries.

And thanks to innovation at every level—from financing and revegetation to partnerships that tap into new revenue sources—CWS has the resources to do so quickly. Where CWS could previously plant 2 million trees and shrubs in a decade, they can now reach that target in a single year.

“You have to get to a point where regulatory compliance is just one part of an output of what your utility does, but really your purpose, or the outcomes you're trying to achieve, are so much greater than that,” says Taniguchi-Dennis.

“And that's really what smart technology is starting to allow us to do. It's allowing us to really hear what's going on in the environment.”

Manage Compliance Data with Klir

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

“A town's water is contaminated with 'forever chemicals' – how did it get this bad?” That’s one of the headlines that residents of Pittsboro, North Carolina, woke up to earlier this year when the Guardian published a story about the community’s water supply.

Researchers had found that a local Chemours/DuPont chemical plant had released potentially toxic amounts of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals”—into the town’s water supply.

As more of these investigations play out in the public eye, PFAS represents one of the greatest threats to public confidence in drinking water in recent memory. 

For municipal leaders and water operators across the country, the question is: what can you do to prepare?

PFAS Goes Public

PFAS entered the national conversation just a few years ago, but research has already linked them to everything from liver cancer to reproductive health issues, and some states have moved to ban them altogether. Congress began to move on PFAS last month when it passed the PFAS Action Act of 2021, which will require the EPA to establish national standards for PFAS levels in drinking water in the future.

Although the EPA already includes PFAS on the list of contaminants it tracks under the unregulated contaminant monitoring rule (UCMR), few laws currently exist dictating what utilities should and shouldn’t be doing about PFAS.

But if you ask WaterPIO founder and communications expert Mike McGill, utilities waiting for directives from legislators are missing a key opportunity to position themselves as leaders on the issue.

“The next time the EPA updates UCMR, you might have to start testing for dozens of different PFAS, and those testing requirements might cover more and smaller utilities. And if that's the case, you’ll have to start communicating about PFAS as soon as you can.”

The Price of Waiting

Much is still unknown about the exact health risks posed by PFAS and the best ways to eliminate them from our water supply. But one thing is for sure: just because PFAS isn’t a problem in your backyard right now doesn’t mean that it won’t eventually be.

“Academics and activists are out there in the interest of protecting public health. They're going to conduct tests in our waterways, and they are going to find these chemicals, and when they do find them, they're going to keep making headlines,” says Mike McGill, who like many other water experts, believes we’re due for a reckoning on PFAS.

He says that if utilities don’t become the first communicators on the subject—that is, the first point of truth that the public turns to for accurate PFAS information in the local water supply—they risk losing control of the narrative completely.

“It becomes a scandal, if you will. Then suddenly we have to start throwing solutions against the wall to make up for the fact that we're behind. And that's where you start making mistakes.”

Utilities that choose to wait until they’re forced to respond risk the following:

Losing Time and Money

Waiting can get expensive. McGill recalls how one water utility in North Carolina spent more than $150 million on a facility to treat water for less than 100,000 people in a rush to address a local PFAS contamination.

PFAS treatment technologies like granular activated carbon (GAC) and ion exchange are already expensive, but if utilities wait until they’re forced to act, they risk scrambling to calm a distraught customer base and hastily picking a treatment solution that might not work for them in the long term.

Losing Control of the Narrative

Just because utilities didn’t create the PFAS problem doesn’t mean they should be afraid of taking responsibility and claiming the issue as their own. 

Not doing so could mean that someone else—regulators, environmentalists, manufacturers, or even customers themselves—takes control of the narrative. And as McGill emphasizes, when utility customers discover that they have potential carcinogens in their drinking water, “it wasn’t me!” probably won’t cut it as an excuse.

“If you're not leading the conversation, then the customer is [simply] going to blame the utility for something they didn't do.”

Eroding Trust

Utilities will have to ‘go first’ when it comes to communicating the threats and challenges of PFAS, and for many organizations—especially smaller utilities not used to doing lots of communications work—doing so might seem like a nerve-wracking experience.

But McGill says waiting could fundamentally erode a utility’s relationship with its customers.

“I used to run a newsroom for a couple of years, and we had an old adage: ‘if I hear from you first, I trust you first. If I hear from you last, I trust you last.’” 

Testing, Treatment, and Transparency

If you’re looking to get ahead of PFAS, Santa Clarita Valley (SCV) Water Agency sets a shining example for a successful communications strategy.

In 2019, California state officials started asking utilities to test wells for PFAS contaminants. The order didn’t require agencies to take any further action, even if they discovered high levels of these contaminants.

Still, when SCV discovered that one of their wells had exceeded the 70 nanograms per liter advisory level, they sprung into action. They shut down the contaminated well, and began sampling all of their other wells for PFAS. 

The agency quickly put in motion plans to build a new treatment facility, but its plan would rely on an even more immediate line of defence. 

SCV embarked on an ambitious communications campaign to bring their fight with PFAS out into the open, led by communications manager Kathie Martin.

The agency began posting regular updates about PFAS testing, changes in regulations, and progress on their (now complete) treatment facility construction to a dedicated portal on their website, social media, and the agency’s email newsletter. Customers also had ample opportunity to learn about PFAS offline, at community meetings and via direct mail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeSVWys61JY

“Not only were we trying to be completely transparent upfront. We also wanted to be a little bit ahead of the game. That turned out to be the right decision,” says SCV operations director Mike Alvord.

The Benefits of Communicating Proactively on PFAS

So, should your agency take a leap of faith, or adopt a “wait and see” approach? 

Experts like Mike McGill argue that effectively communicating on the issue could result in lasting, long term benefits:

Develop a Leadership Advantage

‘Going first’ on PFAS won’t just allow utilities to cut down on public relations risk. It could also permanently cement their place as leaders and experts on the issue, building lasting credibility with customers, media and other stakeholders who are looking for answers.

“If you are willing to get out front and say, ‘we're going to test, and we want to go above and beyond, because that's what we think our role is as the provider of safe clean drinking water is,’ there's a lot of power behind that. Especially when you get results,” points out McGill.

Influence Policy

One specific advantage to adopting a leadership position on an under-regulated contaminant like PFAS is that utilities stand to meaningfully shape policy as it’s being written. 

The more effective utilities are at communicating the on-the-ground realities of treating water for PFAS, the more likely it is that those realities will inform future legislation.

Build More Proactive Organizations in General

The benefits of effectively communicating on issues like PFAS also go beyond any single contaminant or treatment project.

As SCV’s Alvord points out, his organization’s radically transparent approach to the issue did more than just alleviate Santa Clarita Valley residents’ fears about PFAS. It also helped his organization come together and build a strong work culture in the wake of an 2018 SCV agency merger that combined four separate water utilities into one.

“We brought in different cultures, different personalities, and we immediately had to work together because we had to try to form our own new culture,” says Alvord, noting how SCV’s efforts to remain transparent to the public also ended up making the organization more transparent to itself, and therefore more cohesive.

“If we were separate, I think it would have been much more difficult.”

Proven practices for PFAS PR

Taking a lessons from agencies like SCV, here are some approaches to consider as you look to communicate how your agency is acting on the PFAS problem:

1. Take Credit for Your Work

The first step of any good PFAS communication strategy is to take stock of what your organization is already doing about the issue, and to not be afraid to brag about it. 

Have you already started testing for certain PFAS? Has your utility already started working with PFAS treatment technologies like reverse osmosis, GAC, and ion exchange? Then your customers need to hear about it.

Make sure that any valuable work you’re already doing on PFAS doesn’t get buried or confined to just one communication channel, either. 

“I worked with one utility that tested for 75 different PFAS, and their data was spectacular. But they only made a passing reference about that in their water quality report,” points out Mike McGill. 

These types of documents tend to get buried on your website. If you’re not actively pushing this information out to the public, it will likely fall by the wayside.

2. Identify Other PFAS Advocates and Experts

It might also be useful to take stock of other experts in your network or area who might be doing important PFAS work.

Are there any local academics who have published research on PFAS in the past? Environmentalists who have lobbied local governments? Media outlets who have published stories about PFAS? Now might be a good time to become familiar with them and their work, and use it to inform your strategy. 

3. Take a Leadership Role

Even if your utility already does excellent work on PFAS and has good relationships with external stakeholders, you might still feel apprehensive about broadcasting those efforts to your customers. 

McGill understands why utilities might be nervous to take the lead, but he says that the ones that do stand to benefit far more in the long run than those who stay quiet.

“You need to become a thought leader, because by doing so you help out the entire industry. You show the path of how to handle it properly.”

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

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How to customize formatting for each rich text

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How One California Water Utility is Leading the Fight Against the ‘Forever Chemicals’

If you work in water and wastewater, you might remember Erin Brockovich’s successful 1993 lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which proved the company had contaminated a small California town's water supply with a toxic compound called chromium 6.

The $333 million settlement Brockovich negotiated is still the largest in U.S. history, and the wave of awareness her case brought to environmental toxins–helped along by the eponymous 2000 Oscar-winning Julia Roberts film–is considered by many environmentalists today to be a turning point in environmental policy.

So, when the Santa Clarita Valley (SCV) Water Agency’s Mike Alvord first heard about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or “PFAS” in 2019, he was certain the general public was due for a similar wake up call.

Ohio residents had launched a similar class action lawsuit alleging a DuPont chemical plant had contaminated the drinking water of 70,000 people with PFAS in the early 2000s. A film about the lawsuit titled Dark Waters starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway premiered in 2019, just a few months after the state of California ordered water utilities like SCV to start sampling wells for PFAS. At one point Erin Brockovich herself even re-emerged into the public eye to sound the alarm on PFAS.

“I really thought that was going to be the next Erin Brockovich,” says Alvord.

But the premiere of Dark Waters came and went, and the anticipated wave of public outcry against PFAS never materialized.

“It didn't turn into much. Maybe [with COVID] there were too many distractions.”

Despite the relatively tepid public response, Alvord and his colleagues at SCV knew that PFAS was real and that it wasn’t going away any time soon. So instead of waiting for regulators and the public to catch up, they decided to get ahead of the problem.

What is PFAS?

PFAS (pronounced ‘Pee-Fass’) are a class of synthetic “forever chemicals” found in everything from nonstick pans to takeout containers to the foams used in firefighting.

“It's ubiquitous. The United States has been manufacturing PFAS chemicals since the fifties, and consumers have been enjoying the benefits of PFAS chemicals for decades,” says Alvord.

Studies have shown that PFAS may be associated with reproductive health issues, testicular and kidney cancer, high cholesterol and suppression of vaccine effectiveness in children, and that it might already be present in 98 out of every 100 people’s bloodstreams.

Some European countries and Maine have banned the compounds, but American water utilities are still grappling with how to best manage these contaminants. Most of them weren’t aware of PFAS until 2015 when the EPA added it to the list of contaminants it tracks under the unregulated contaminant monitoring rule (UCMR), and to this day there are few concrete rules around PFAS.

Alvord is the Director of Operations and Maintenance at SCV, which provides water to more than 300,000 business and residential customers in Southern California. When he and his colleagues discovered that one of the agency’s wells had exceeded the EPA’s advisory level of 70 nanograms per liter for two PFAS chemicals in 2019, no law or rule required them to shut down the well.

“But we immediately shut it off. We didn't have to, but we did–for the sake of the public and the sake of the uncertainty. We just didn't know what was going on.”

The First Line of Defence: Transparency

Instead of dealing with it quietly, the SCV decided to bring their fight with PFAS out into the open.

The 2019 California order had only required SCV to sample 15 of their wells for PFAS, but the agency began sampling all of them. They also began posting regular updates about their findings to their website, and took a radically transparent approach to informing their customers about the PFAS threat in Southern California.

Alvord says that transparency didn’t just help SCV act quickly on the PFAS problem. It also helped the agency–which was formed after the state merged four separate water utilities in 2018–find its feet as a new organization, come together as a team, and build a strong work culture on short notice.

“We brought in different cultures, different personalities, and we immediately had to work together because we had to try to form our own new culture,” says Alvord.

“If we were separate, even though we worked well together separately, I think it would have been much more difficult.”

Removing PFAS from Water

Most drinking water & wastewater utilities have three lines of defence against PFAS. They can use:

1. Reverse osmosis, which forces water through a high-pressure membrane.

2. Granular activated carbon, like the kind you find in refrigerator water filtration systems, which is also the most studied PFAS removal solution.

3. Ion exchange, a process by which PFAS compounds are absorbed into a special kind of resin.

The problem is that none of these technologies were originally designed to remove PFAS from the water, and they each have room for improvement.

The energy costs involved in reverse osmosis, for example, usually make it prohibitively expensive for water utilities. Granular activated carbon can also get expensive, not just materials-wise but also because of the amount of byproduct that needs to be disposed of.

Even ion exchange, the solution SCV settled on, can be challenging in the amount of byproduct it produces.

Staying Flexible and Keeping an Open Mind

More interesting than SCV’s technology choice itself, however, is the sheer speed with which the water agency was able to design, permit, and build the facility–during the COVID shutdown no less.

SCV’s new PFAS treatment facility in Valencia is an impressive sight: six massive vessels filled with ion exchange resin churn through up to 6,250 gallons of water per minute, enough to serve an estimated 5,000 households every year.

Most agencies would have taken years to build the facility, but that was time that Alvord says the SCV didn’t have when they embarked on the project in 2019.

“So instead, we did all of it at the same time. We were doing planning, bidding for construction, design–all of that simultaneously.”

It took just one year to construct the facility, which today produces upwards of 6,000 gallons of clean water per minute and has become a template for future plants slated for construction.

Alvord doesn’t recommend other utilities hold themselves to a similarly tight deadline. But he says the resourcefulness and speed SCV was able to bring to the treatment plant project is a product of the organization’s culture of flexibility and cooperation between groups like engineering and operations.

“Don't just leave it up to your engineering group to do everything: spread the wealth and, you know, spread the pain,” suggests Alvord, acknowledging the tension that can sometimes exist between technically-minded engineers and operators with their eye on the bottom line.

“Engineers have to rely on operations staff to tell them what's in the field, so make sure you do those field visits together, so that what they're planning is going to match with what's happening in reality.”

The Value of Good Communication and tTust

Talking to Alvord, it quickly becomes clear that SCV’s ability to get ahead of the PFAS problem is as much an organizational achievement as it is a technical one.

When asked about what advice he’d give to organizations and operations leaders trying to replicate those results, Alvord reiterates the importance of transparency, openness, and communication in the water industry.

“I preach that the two most important things to be successful are good communication and building relationships,” says Alvord, who also works as an instructor in the Water Systems Technology department at a local college.

“If you can learn to communicate effectively without sounding arrogant, without sounding offensive or derogatory, you're going to be ahead of the game.”

Looking to get ahead of PFAS regulation? Start by automating your water monitoring plan with Klir. Talk to one of our specialists today.

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.