Advance Notice

Budget

$175,000

Objective

Identify and evaluate technologies and approaches for solids management, including PFAS destruction.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

• Identify currently available PFAS residual management options and inform utilities of their suitability under various operational and regulatory circumstances.
• Convene a workshop with regulators and utilities to validate regulatory acceptability of various management approaches.

Budget

$250,000

Objective

• Establish cost effective strategies for the best management practices/control for PFAS multiple contaminants and CECs in all water sources.
• Provide benefit/cost guidance to utilities in determining viable treatment options at the WTTP or the source. If protection measures are implemented at the source, the research would guide the selection of the most cost- effective practices.

Budget

$200,000

Objective

Develop and establish cost effective strategies for the best management practices/control for PFAS in all water sources.

Budget

$250,000

Objective

• Evaluate the effectiveness of UV LED light for microbial inactivation.
• Assess the feasibility of using UV LED light at treatment plants.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

• Assess the ability of these data to detect meaningful change and to inform real-time operations.
• Understand and define the reliability and resolution of these methods and conduct ground truthing to verify performance.

Budget

$200,000

Objective

• Apply One Water planning principles and approaches in multiple municipal programs and holistic watershed management that need to meet both environmental objectives and inter-connected regulatory requirements (e.g., CWA and SDWA).
• Create a decision framework that can help describe a roadmap of inter-connected projects and initiatives at utilities.
• Facilitate the engagement with the regulatory agencies to proactively identify the priorities and the benefits of relative actions.

Budget

$200,000

Objective

• Enhance precipitation projection and modeling techniques with risk-based criteria to mitigate risks for utilities (e.g., sewer overflows, flooding, stream network deterioration).
• Create research related to best practice for climate change rainfall statistics and projections by region.
• Advance the risk-based approach and adapt water infrastructure systems and enhance the protection of stream networks to meet water quantity and quality requirements under changing climate.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

• Propose a new paradigm for water sector workforce roles and responsibilities.
• List general skillsets and pay scale needed to attract the talent to the water sector, particularly within utilities, to champion digital transformation.
• Develop or harness available training resources/categories (online training, webinars, conferences, etc.) and approaches to support skillsets needed (upskilling, on the job training by doing, etc.)

Budget

$200,000

Objective

• Document the emerging forms of affordability program options.
• Evaluate the benefits and costs of implementing these programs in a variety of utility contexts and settings.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

• Identify the role of community-based organizations and community leaders and how to lead with their voice in identifying and defining desired benefits for the community.
• Identify appropriate metrics for building resilient communities that blends lived experience of the community with technical expertise.
• Develop holistic mitigation strategies, including planning level costs to reconcile the social inequities associated with community climate adaptation and watershed management.
• Develop or modify an easy-to-use supporting TBL tool and analysis framework that allow utilities to better assess equity implications of various options.

Budget

$200,000

Objective

• Monetize and incorporate impacts from water system disruptions and emergency events on disadvantaged neighborhoods into a Cost of Failure (COF) calculation.
• Develop a framework with supporting information that allows for integration of equity and justice consideration into an asset management program.
• Ensure the results of this project are robust and applicable to any type of water utility as well as small and large systems.

Budget

$225,000

Objective

• Demonstrate how changes in public health/water conditions can lead to measurable changes in public health/water outcomes.
• Demonstrate how the data can be made actionable in policy, public health, and operational contexts.
• Identify best practices for data sharing and communication across the public health and One Water sectors.
• Investigate opportunities to better inform the public and One Water sectors.

Budget

$250,000

Objective

• Conduct remaining research and finalize design and operational guidance for PdNA full-scale implementation (integrated and polishing).
• Advance the integration of PdNA with biological phosphorus (P) removal through anoxic uptake of P as the main driver of nitrite production from the proof of principle stage towards full-scale testing.

Budget

$250,000

Objective

• Identify processes to monitor how supply conditions change over time (indicators being tracked: storage, demand, financial resources, climate, hydrology, regulations, equity, etc.), and determine best practices.
• Describe how utilities identify drivers of change, develop scenarios, and incorporate them into adaptive planning approaches.
• Describe how utilities identify triggers and monitor changing conditions.
• Consider international examples, as well as other sectors for best practices.

Budget

$250,000

Objective

• Characterize microplastic concentrations in source waters and quantify microplastic loading variability.
• Characterize microplastic concentrations before and after each process in drinking water treatment plants.
• Perform mass balance on microplastics within a drinking water treatment plant.

Budget

$125,000

Objective

• Identify and define an inclusive work environment, best practices, methods, metrics, etc.
• Identify partnerships that have been successful in accelerating DE&I objectives.
• Identify utilities that have been successful.

Budget

$200,000

Objective

• Develop a decision support framework and operational guidelines for WRRFs to achieve Net-Zero Carbon and beyond (e.g., through Water-Energy-Food nexus).
• Synthesize case studies worldwide that can help demonstrate the applicability of decision support framework for broader uses.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

Develop a utility-facing guidance document and a supporting spreadsheet tool that capture current best practices worldwide for developing a utility GHG inventory of capital and operating emissions over the life cycle.

Budget

$350,000

Objective

• Provide quantifiable results, real case studies and a demonstration study of implementation to gain insight into the capabilities of vendor-driven, academic-driven, and home-grown solutions to process performance evaluation.
• Demystify AI/ML to enable all staff to understand, trust, and embrace via provable outcomes and value driven-KPIs. Document how to assess which AI/ML solution is best for specific types of use cases.
• Identify benefits (e.g., efficiency, effectiveness, cost-saving, etc.) and how to sustain them after initial AI/ML implementation with only minimal upkeep.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

• Perform detailed review and analysis of existing condition assessment data for two types of common North American pipe.
• Investigate means of extracting more value from existing condition assessment data.
• Investigate ways to extrapolate pipe condition between measurement points, as well as further develop and understand the statistics of pipe deterioration and failure.

Budget

$150,000

Objective

• Assess possibilities of new and emerging technologies to increase utility resilience.
• Conduct case studies of demonstrated applications of new and emerging technologies with quantified costs and benefits.