Unsung Heroes of Our Environment
by Clay Duffie
Teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, physicians, scientists and many other professionals serve our community as modern day heroes. They are true heroes because they provide sustaining benefits to society with little recognition. When you thank them, they may reply, “I’m just doing a job I love.”
But have you ever wondered about heroes for the environment?
Tommy Kohler, an Environmental Systems Operator with Mount Pleasant Waterworks is one such hero. More than a year ago, his training and quick action may have saved our community from a costly environmental accident.
At 2:30 a.m. during an intense lighting storm, electric power was knocked out to one of our key wastewater operationsfacilities. Although backup generators started immediately, a primary component did not re-start as programmed. Kohler responded, accessed the system and manually re-booted the computer systems to activate emergency operations.operations. His actions averted a wastewater system back-up that could have taken days and enormous cost to mitigate control.
The truth is, some of the most important jobs in the world today belong to Environmental Systems Operators. Highly trained with an integrated knowledge of engineering, chemical and the physical sciences, many of these men and women work for water and wastewater utilities to ensure clean drinking water and to protect the environment through wastewater treatment and disposal.
This professionwork is recognized in our state during Environmental Systems Operators Week, October 16-22, 2006, as established by the S.C. Governor Mark Sanford.’s office as Environmental Systems Operators Week, set for October 16 – 22.
Health and, Safety Every Single Day.
To put this profession into context, imagine going to work every single day with your community’s health and safety riding on your knowledge, experience and technical capability.
Clean, safe drinking water doesn’t automatically occur in nature. Environmental Systems Operators are in charge of our reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment plants, making sure our supply wells and RO systems run properly. Operators in Mount Pleasant also manage the distribution system that deliverschannels up to 108.6 million gallons per day of clean water from plant sites to homes, offices, stores, schools and elsewhere. Withhile leading edge technology is used to monitoring system pressures and water chemistrysystem flow, operators must make key decisions to assure efficiency quality service throughout the system, twenty four hours a day seven days a week.
Laboratory analysis is performed in each 24-hour period every day. Water quality results are catalogued and reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).
Protection of Water Resources and Our Environment
Operators at biological wastewater treatment facilities work on the front lines of environmental protection in any given community. Each and every day MPW customers generate about 12,000 lbs. of biochemical oxygen demand on our environment. At MPW Environmental Systems Operators remove 99% of this pollution from the environment by properly operating our wastewater plants, which we refer to as, pollution control facilities.
Without their expertise, our modern quality of life would simply not exist.
Wastewater operations are highly regulated by the EPA and DHEC to meet strict guidelines for treatment, bio-solids disposal and effluent discharge. Operators work as stewards of the environment in a complex, high-tech process that involves biology, engineering and industrial management.
During any 24-hour process in On average in Mount Pleasant, operators treat up to 6.767 million gallons of wastewater and dispose of 5.786 tons of bio-solids generated by the community every day. That’s over 4 million pounds of pollution removed from our water environment each year.
Hero Training
On-going education is a keyvital to this profession. At Mount Pleasant Waterworks, we are fortunate to have an experienced team of 43 operators who hold hold 43 “A” licenses in water and wastewater system management. Achieving an “A” license is a career milestone as it takes several years of experience and many hours of classroom instruction and knowledge.
Every two years, operators are required to complete continuing education. But what’s comforting to know is that each year, operators voluntarily seek out new training over and above minimum standards set by the Sstate and EPA. As a result, many of our operators in Mount Pleasant hold multiple “A” licenses.
That’s an incredible effort by some verySo the next time you turn on a faucet or flush a toilet, think of those dedicated unsung heroes in our community that are protecting the environment for all of us.
(Clay Duffie is General Manger of Mount Pleasant Waterworks and has more than 30 years of experience in water and wastewater management practice. He is a past President of the South Carolina Water Pollution Control Association and the SC Section of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and has led numerous national seminars on environmental, leadership and utility management issues.)
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--Press Room
