Delaware's Water and Wastewater Success Story:
From Failure to Perfection
Carla Sydney Stone
Delaware Technical and Community College
Do water and wastewater operator training and certification work? Just ask Delaware.Delaware was one of the last states to open an environmental training center - and it showed. The state had difficulty meeting the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act. Municipalities and industrial companies committed numerous violations of water discharge permits. A study conducted by Delaware's largest newspaper, The News Journal, uncovered 1,892 violations in the 18 months between January, 1994 and June 30, 1996. By 1998, companies, and municipalities with discharge permits had reduced their violations by 90%. During this time period, only 172 violations were incurred.
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Delaware Tech Assists USAID's Efforts to
Improve Bulgaria's Environment
Delaware Technical and Community College has received a $300,000 cooperative agreement from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement USAID's first Water and Wastewater Training Center program in Bulgaria. This Center will provide technical training to operators, supervisors and managers of water and wastewater treatment plants, enabling Bulgaria to meet its goals for improving delivery and quality of water and water treatment services.
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DCET/WEF/CWEA Contingent Completes Clean Water Good Will Trip to Vietnam
(By Jerry Williams, DCET, edited by Steve Rohm, Ecoletter Editorial Staff)
Trip Report - 1
PURPOSE: The purpose of the trip was to assess the institutional and professional capabilities of Vietnam to support an operator certification program. However, this was only part of a larger, ongoing effort to establish operator certification in four countries: Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, (CATSPAW) Certification and Training Support for Professional Associations in Water.
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Eurasian Environmentalists Visit Seaford
Jeff Deats, Superintendent, City of Seaford WWTP
The City of Seaford recently provided a tour of their Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility to a group of 14 delegates from Eurasia (countries of the former Soviet Union) and their 2 interpreters. The delegates, each an environmental professional in their own country, visited the U.S. as part of a new program.
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Sojourn to Bulgaria
The Chesapeake Water Environment Association (CWEA) established a partnership in 1993 for the technical support of the newly formed Bulgarian National Association on Water Quality (BNAWQ) through the CWEA International subcommittee. Several exchange missions have taken place over the years in an effort to strengthen the partnership and exchange information.
It was on such an exchange visit to the US, late summer 2000, that members of the BNAWQ were introduced to the Delaware Center for Environmental Training (DCET) and Jerry Williams, the DCET director. The BNAWQ team of Dr. Atanas Paskalev, Dr. Grigori Michilov, and Dr. Roumen Arsov were impressed with what DCET had to offer in the way of operator training and requested further information. That information was transferred in person in a week of meetings and a conference presentation that took place the week of February 19th through the 23rd 2001 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
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Using Professional Networks to Develop Water Quality Infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe
Tiffin Shewmake
Water Environment Federation
Members of the Water Environment Federation (WEF ) have long re cognized the value that W EF brings to the U.S. wastewater sector. As a professional association, WEF has helped develop the professionalism and technology of the water quality field through journals, conferences, research, and professional recognition. WEF brought this model of professionals improving their field to selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The result of this effort is an understanding of how professional associations can help develop the infrastructure and capabilities of the wastewater sector in countries transitioning from centrally planned to market driven economies.
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