The old saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." In the case of wastewater, what a city flushes is an entire treasure trove of resources: nutrients, water, and energy. The key is developing the infrastructure and a culture, internally and externally, that supports recovering these resources through wastewater treatment facilities.March 28 and 29, 2012, in Raleigh, N.C., the Water Environment Federation (WEF) hosted the Energy Roadmap Summit. This summit brought together nearly 40 water professionals with experience in generating renewable energy at wastewater treatment plants. The goal of the summit was to create a "road map" to help plants increase renewable energy production, reduce energy consumption and focus on overall energy management.This roadmap leverages the Smart Grid Maturity Model (SGMM), a framework developed by the electric power sector to move towards "Smart Grid" technology. How Do We Get There?WEF's Energy Roadmap is a series of steps to help wastewater utilities plan and implement a wastewater energy program. The road map is applicable whether plants choose simply to increase energy efficiency or to build a full-scale cogeneration system. Steps will be arranged under various topics, from technical needs to managerial aspects, and will be applicable to small, medium, and large facilities.Wastewater treatment plants are not waste disposal facilities but are water resource recovery facilities that produce clean water, recover nutrients (such as phosphorus and nitrogen), and have the potential to reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels through the production and use of renewable energy and the implementation of energy conservation. -Water Environment Federation 2011 Renewable Energy Position StatementEnergy sustainability is achieved through a combination of advancements in technical and organizational aspects of a utility.The steps are arranged under six topics:Under the six topics, the steps are organized into levels of progression. The first set of steps enables the organization. The second set integrates energy efficiency and generation into the organization's structure, culture, communications strategy, and technology. The last set of steps involves optimizing current processes and procedures. Strategic Management:High-level management policies and practices that lay the foundation for sustainable energy managementOrganizational Culture: Implementation of an energy vision to create an organizational culture that values energy efficiency at all levels and supports an energy champion and crossfunctional energy team Communication and Outreach: Tools for effective two-way communication with key stakeholders around energy management Demand Side Management: Methods to assess and reduce energy use and energy costs Energy Generation: Tools for utilities to evaluate whether and how to increase onsite renewable energy production and/or investments

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Having the water reclamation capacity of 70 million gallons per day (MGD) and expandable up to 130 MGD, the Ground Water Replenishment (GWR) System is the largest water purification and reuse project of its kind in the world. With the advent of groundwater replenishment and reuse, a new paradigm of source control has started at the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD). Traditionally, Source Control was primarily based on enforcement and compliance of the EPA's National Pretreatment and NPDES Programs. At OCSD, Source Control has expanded its role to monitoring and controlling microconstituents from both point and nonpoint sources using two innovative methods: 1) Predictive Modeling and 2) Real-Time Modeling.As part of its expanded program to assure that the water produced by the GWR System is of the highest quality, Source Control has developed key programs for both predictive and real-time monitoring of microconstituents in source water received by the facilities. Information from predictive and real-time monitoring can be used to alert facility operations of abnormalities such as microconstituent concentration spikes, growth trends, or reductions. The information is also used as triggers for implementation of various point and nonpoint source control measures to reduce or smooth concentration spikes. Predictive ModelingPredictive modeling is based on a stochastic, time-series approach using Kalman filters and autoregressive integrated moving average methods such as Box-Jenkins. These models are applied to microconstituent analytical data of 1) the source stream recognizing that there is a high potential of outliers and noise due to matrix interference and signal suppression; and 2) intermediate streams where noise due to matrix interference and signal suppression are diminished but facility dynamics come into play.Unlike conventional constituents where levels of concentrations are established or exhibit discernable patterns, microconstituents may follow consumer trends that may be influenced by competing new products, product replacement and substitution, health advisories, or consumer news. Historical (past) data can potentially bias the results if it is not discarded after new consumer trends emerge. Therefore, a recursive approach is necessary where the output is used to condition the estimate and past data is discarded.Results of the stochastic time series model are compared with economic indicators such as pharmaceutical sales estimates or usage statistics, and heuristics based on expert opinion and WEFTEC 2009 product literature. In this manner, the predictive model is tempered with real-life judgment. Real-Time ModelingReal-time modeling uses surrogates and analytical equipment to identify the magnitude of concentration and upstream locations of point and nonpoint sources or in-plant. Statistical methods are employed that test for correlation of the surrogate to speciated analytical data. If the surrogate concentration increases, it may indicate an increase in concentration of a family of microconsti...

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