Founded in 1928, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization with 36,000 individual members and 75 member associations representing water-quality professionals around the world. WEF and its member associations, such as the Chesapeake Water Environment Association (CWEA), work together to achieve WEF’s mission to preserve and enhance the global water environment.

Part of that mission includes the Operations Challenge, held annually at WEFTEC, the WEF trade show and conference. The Operations Challenge skills competition, being held Oct. 17-18 at WEFTEC in Los Angeles, recognizes excellence and demonstrates the span of skills necessary for today’s water-quality professionals. The event also exposes participants to emerging practices and products in a competitive, educational, and social atmosphere.

 

Popular event

Among the five required tasks in the Challenge is a collection systems event where teams repair a length of in-service 8-inch pipe. “The collection systems event is very popular among the competitors and audience because it is fast, has clear objectives, and remains suspenseful until the integrity of the repair is evaluated by a pressure test,” says Steve Harrison, WEF project manager. “While the goal is to create a situation that is as realistic as possible, it is important to note that cutting SDR35 pipe with hand saws does not reflect current industry practice.”

This year for the first time ever, WEF included the Pipeline Assessment and Certification Program (PACP) content in the event, and PACP training will be available to WEFTEC attendees on Oct. 15 and 16.

“While PACP training is inserted into the event, that doesn’t fundamentally alter the tradition of the repair scenario,” says Harrison. “Instead, it provides an incentive for participants to obtain a professional credential that introduces them to pipe defect coding, but doesn’t require the teams to make a capital investment in any new equipment. The complexity of the PACP content in the event will be increased in future years as the teams become more proficient.”

 

Looking to expand

NASSCO tested the Operations Challenge waters during the New Jersey Water Environment Association Challenge event May 9-10 in Atlantic City. Thirteen teams tested their collection systems skills, including their PACP knowledge.

T.J. Johnson of Delta Systems Environmental is the national coordinator for the Ops Challenge collection systems event. “Including PACP is a win/win situation,” he says. “The development of PACP material for use in this event has been beneficial to participants and WEF, since it involves material that is appropriate for collection system operators to know.”

NASSCO plans to continue working with WEF in making the PACP portion of the event more realistic and challenging. For example, this year competitors must review photographs of observations made during a pipeline CCTV inspection and accurately describe the observations using PACP methods. In future competitions, we plan to move from descriptions to coding, and to replace still photographs with video.

The Operations Challenge includes the kind of hands-on experience that makes the work we do resonate with professionals in our industry. Another example of real-time experience is the Underground Technology Conference Rehab Zone, which hosts live demonstrations of emerging trenchless technologies. The show is slated for Jan. 24-26 in San Antonio, and sponsors will waive attendance fees for anyone registering for PACP training during the show. For more information on PACP class registration, visit www.nassco.org. F

Ted DeBoda is executive director of NASSCO. He can be reached at director@nassco.org. NASSCO is located at 11521 Cronridge Drive, Suite J, Owings Mills, MD 21117