Transcript

Christoph Lohr: Welcome back to The Authority Podcast: Plumbing & Mechanical. Joining me on this week’s episode is Tony Marcello, senior vice president of Training and Credential Services. Tony, thanks for joining us. 

Tony Marcello: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Christoph Lohr: Likewise. And joining us for a second time is Mary Ann Dickinson, founder of Dickinson Associates. You were on our very first episode, so excited to have you on season four now and having you come back. 

Mary Ann Dickinson: I can’t believe it’s season four. Wow. That’s great. I’m happy to be here. 

Christoph Lohr: We’re really happy to have you here, both of you here, and talking about a really exciting opportunity for people to get engaged with industry and learn a lot. Specifically, what we’re going to be talking about is the Emerging Water Technology Symposium that’s going to be located here in Scottsdale, Arizona, right close to my hometown here in Phoenix, where the industry is going to gather to talk about some really exciting things. 

And I think what our listeners will probably want to hear about first is what is the Emerging Water Technology Symposium? Tony do you want to start us off and then Mary Ann, do you want to chime in? 

Tony Marcello: Yeah, I’ll be happy to kind of introduce the event. So the Emerging Technology Symposium, or as we call it, the EWTS, as the full title can be a little bit of a mouthful, is really kind of an important industry event that’s co-convened by IAPMO, ASPE and PMI, as well as in conjunction with the World Planning Council, to bring people together and talk about what is coming up on the horizon in terms of new technology and the impact it’s going to have on the current water infrastructure and availability. 

As you said, this next one will be in Scottsdale, May 14th and 15^th, and it’s really designed to kind of highlight new technologies, which also includes software, which is a growing piece of the water puzzle these days, covering plumbing and water usage practices, as well as important research and public policy that impacts the water world. 

This year’s event really is trying to focus on a particular theme, with that theme being the nexus between sustainability and safety. I think everyone agrees that individually, both those efforts are extremely important. People need to have water available, so sustainability is important, and the water that people drink and use needs to be safe. But what happens sometimes is as efforts are made on one side, it can sometimes cause unintended consequences on the other side. So this year's EWTS is really going to be focused on where those things come together and how do you solve some of those problems and avoid some of those unintended consequences, with the focus again being on water scarcity issues and the sustainability and safety aspect of it. Scottsdale actually made a lot of sense to hold this event, if you think about it. 

With the very real water scarcity issues that are facing that area, it made sense to convene a conference like this in the areas that they’re actually selling these issues and trying to deal with these issues in real time. As you pointed out, we are very fortunate to have Mary Ann with us today as well to talk about the EWTS. Mary Ann has been involved with EWTS since before it first started way back in 2008. 

She’s played a very important role the entire time, a leadership role. And we're very lucky now that she has retired, in a way; she's no longer with the Alliance for Water Efficiency but seems to be keeping herself busy in her new endeavor. She’s continuing to work with the EWTS as the chair of the technical committee that helps put together the program, so we’re very lucky to have her with us. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Mary Ann, I was going to say from from your perspective, in the context, the history, obviously you’ve been with the EWTS for a long time, as Tony alluded to. Following up that question or adding to it, what is EWTS is to you and what makes it different from other water conferences?

Mary Ann Dickinson: This is such an interesting question, because when we first started putting together this symposium back in 2008, that was when reduced water flows were starting to have some impacts in utility distribution systems and in buildings. And suddenly the Legionella scare became a real thing. And this was the first conference to talk about Legionella and sustainability in the same vein, but would give practical advice to not only those in the plumbing industry, but those in the water utility world as to how to correctly deal with it. 

Legionella should not be a reason to not do water efficiency. And so that was one of the very first premises of EWTS when we started it in 2008, and I've been at every one of them except San Antonio so I have a great respect for this conference because it, I think, brings together the right kinds of people to have this conversation. 

Utility people don't always come together with the plumbing industry experts in the kind of forum that this provides, and so this is a really unique opportunity, especially now that it's in Scottsdale in the arid west, where Colorado River issues are going to be so paramount in water utility reductions and demand. This is going to be a conference where making sure those reductions don't cause safety issues in water quality, it's a huge issue. And so from my experience, this is the only conference that talks about that. I go to a bunch of conferences, American Water Works Association and others. But this one really focuses very succinctly on this topic. It's a terrific symposium for both the plumbing industry and the water utility industry to attend.

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, we’re talking about attending, so I guess first I'll ask you, Mary Ann, and then Tony maybe, if you want to follow up. Who should attend the EWTS and why? 

Mary Ann Dickinson: I spent a lot of my career working with the water utility industry as the CEO of the Alliance for Water Efficiency. This was a big issue. As we lobbied hard for national standards and efficiency, we were very sensitive to what those implications might be. For me, it's really important that the water utility community pay attention to this issue because as they get slammed with boil water orders because their chlorine residual hasn’t gone all the way into the customer meters, they need to address these slow aging water issues and potential Legionella and other contaminant issues, but not at the expense of water efficiency. 

We can make this work. So I think the water utility folks who are right at the line of managing their water operations systems and their water quality programs ought to come to this conference because it really will give them some very good, practical, important advice.  

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Tony, any recommendations from your end about who should attend? 

Tony Marcello: Yes, earlier Mary Ann hit upon, I think, one of the really interesting aspects of this conference that really makes it unique in that it’s the group that we bring together. She mentioned utilities and the plumbing industry don’t always come together to talk about some of these issues. 

This conference really kind of brokers some of those discussions, and I was able to get input from both sides. It really does have kind of a niche place in the water conference world, but in addition to the utilities the (list of) other folks that should be there is quite extensive — so much so I actually had to make a list to make sure I didn't leave out any important groups. Some of the folks that should be there are folks from manufacturers, folks from government. As we mentioned, public policy is often discussed as part of the symposium; people from other industry associations, especially those that deal with these same issues that we’re trying to tackle. As Mary Ann mentioned, the utilities, but then also folks from academia, the engineers, consultants; people that are going to be out there trying to market themselves as people to help people deal with these types of issues. Those people should be there as well as standards developer and the trade press in order to be in the know as to what's coming and how people are looking to try to deal with some of these real-world issues. There’s no short list of people that should come; I think, in a nutshell, you could say that everyone in the water world would benefit from being there, but these are really the kind of core groups I think would benefit the most. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. I guess this question goes, Tony, you had mentioned that Mary Ann is the chair of the of the planning committee here for speakers. Mary Ann, can you give our listeners a preview of some of the speakers and sessions that the 2024 EWTS will include? 

Mary Ann Dickinson: Sure happy to do that. And Christoph, you’re co-chair with me, so we’ve got both sides taking a close look at putting together a program that people will like. It’s a two-day conference. We’re going to start with the keynote speaker from Arizona State University, Sarah Porter, who’s going to talk about the role of water sustainability and demand management in the West. The keynote on the second day is going to be Will Sarni, formerly of Deloitte, but now the founder and CEO of Water Foundry. 

He's a technology expert and he’s going to give a keynote talk on water innovation in decentralized and extreme decentralized technologies, because we’re seeing in these decentralized technologies where some of those safety issues do crop up. So we've got two keynotes that are going to anchor the two days. The first day we’re going to focus mostly on sustainability topics like the water energy nexus, how saving water saves energy and how that is calculated. 

We’re also going to jump into the unintended water quality challenges for water utilities. That’ll be an afternoon session on the first day, and then on the second day we’ll talk some more about the solutions and what some of the challenges and opportunities are for making progress in this area. And we’ll finish with the panel that Christoph is going to lead that’s going to focus on where do we go from here? What are what are going to be our action items, what are the solutions that we need to work on together as multiple industries? That’s going to be an open and interactive session with the audience. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. For our listeners, Tony, if you can just help in wrapping this up, can you repeat the dates and websites and deadlines to register for our listeners just so if they’re interested they can attend? 

Tony Marcello: I’d be happy to, because we look forward to seeing everybody in attendance in May. EWTS, again, is going to be in Scottsdale, Arizona, May 14th and 15th. As Mary Ann said, it's a two-day event, very packed schedule. We encourage everyone to sign up early as we do have limited seating and we’re expecting higher than average interest this year, so encourage people to act sooner rather than later. Also, there is a room block with the venue that it’s being hosted at. Those rooms are first come, first served, so always good to get your plans done earlier and not wait until the last minute. 

Again, I encourage folks to visit the website. It’s ewts.org. It has a lot of good information about some of the past EWTSes for folks that might be interested in some of the issues that have been tackled in the past. It will also contain the program for this EWTS so people can look up all of the presentations that are going to be taking place as well as who the presenters are presenting those presentations. 

And I’m happy to say that registration is live so folks are able to get over there, as I said, sooner rather than later, by going to ewts.org, and if you look on the upper right hand corner you’ll see a yellow button that says register. Click on that and it’ll take you over to the registration portal to enter your information and payment, and you’ll be all good to go. 

Mary Ann Dickinson: And there’s also a hotel room block. 

Christoph Lohr: Fantastic. Well, May in the Phenix metro area and Scottsdale will be a great time to be here. During the day it’ll be a little bit warm, but we’ll be in sessions and in the evenings it’ll be absolutely perfect to go out dining and enjoy some of the outdoor dining opportunities in the Phenix metro area. I’m really excited to be part of the host city to host this event and on behalf of The Authority Podcast: Plumbing & Mechanical, I want to say thank you, Mary Ann, thank you, Tony, for taking some time out of your busy schedules to help talk to our listeners about this great event. 

Tony Marcello: Happy to. Thanks for having me.