INSTRUCTORS:
Bruce Douglas, P.E.
Julie Wood

As urban water and wastewater infrastructure ages, urban hydrology continues to degrade. As we face numerous challenges from global climate change, new approaches are necessary to extract benefits from what we current deem to be “waste” (i.e., sewage and food wastes) and bring the circular economy concept into water and wastewater management. An urban smart sewering approach has been developed, which utilizes Community Water and Energy Recovery Centers (CWERCs), small-scale distributed plants which extract, reclaim and reuse the energy, water and nutrients in wastewater and food waste. This system takes a holistic view of water management, considering stormwater, groundwater and surface water, in connection to wastewater and potable water systems. The reclaimed water is reused for multiple purposes, including ecological restoration of surface waters, increase depleted groundwater levels and providing alternative water supplies to fulfill non-potable water demands. Both thermal (from reclaimed wastewater) and chemical (via combustion of methane derived from anaerobic digestion of organic materials) energy are produced providing renewable, reliable energy in close proximity to areas of high energy demand. This webinar presents the technical, financial, and economic tools needed to implement CWERCs. It presents the results of financial models evaluating the business case for CWERCs, an economic assessment comparing and contrasting CWERCs to conventional centralized wastewater treatment, and food waste management.

Primary Discussion Topics

• Integrated management of water resources in urban watersheds
• Water reclamation and reuse in sewered areas
• Energy recovery from wastewater and food processing waste
• Green infrastructure implementation for ecological restoration in urban watershed areas
• Business and economic case for distributed water and energy recovery in sewered areas

Learning Outcomes

• Describe concept of water resource management in urban areas through water and energy recovery from existing waste streams, using Community Water and Energy Recovery Centers (CWERCs)
• Explain tools for CWERC implementation using a conceptual design of a neighborhood-scale system
• Describe application of green infrastructure for ecological restoration in sewered urban areas
• Analyze business case approach to assessing financial benefits of urban smart sewering scenarios
• Demonstrate application of an economic case for CWERCs in sewered urban areas

Webinar Benefits

• Learn new business-case approach to developing alternative water supplies
• Examine the possibility of distributing wastewater reclamation and reuse throughout an urban area
• Learn key economic drivers for CWERC implementation
• Determine economic factors to consider in evaluation of CWERC implementation
• Determine technical factors used in analyzing urban neighborhoods for CWERC suitability
• Learn how to examine the possibilities of CWERC implementation in your community
• Explore latest strategies to repair urban hydrology using recovery of existing resources and implementation of green infrastructure

Intended Audience

• Civil engineers
• Environmental engineers
• Public water, wastewater, and stormwater engineers
• Hydrologists
• Municipal water, wastewater, and stormwater authority officials

Webinar Outline

• Background – presenters will provide a brief background on the urban water management challenges that lead us to pursue this approach
• Urban Smart Sewering Concept Introduction
• CRWA/NSU Case Study Results
• Technical modeling results
• Financial modeling results
• Environmental restoration
• Social welfare economic analysis results
• Replication Model and Analysis – brief overview of a model simulations of using CWERCs to replace greater Boston’s centralized wastewater system
• Q & A