Tap Talk

For the penultimate episode of our fifth season, Glenn Barnes joins us for the first episode of a two-part series. Glenn is the director of Water Finance Assistance , a consulting agency that provides finance-focused training and technical assistance to water systems. Our discussion focused specifically on water auditing at utilities, or the process of identifying and minimizing the loss of non-re...

In Tap Talk's 58th episode, Dr. Andrew Whelton of Purdue University visits to discuss plumbing and water system safety in buildings. Dr. Whelton is the lead of Purdue's Center for Plumbing Safety , and among many duties, he explores solutions at the intersection of water infrastructure and public health. Listen to learn about how plumbing affects water quality, how the COVID pandemic rocked the wa...

This week we are pleased to welcome another deeply knowledgeable guest from the state of Minnesota: Vanessa Demuth, a geologist and well inspector from Dakota County, Minnesota's Environmental Resources Department . Dakota County is one of a set of Minnesota counties that has stricter standards for well water pollutants than the state. Vanessa tells Steve and Jennifer how these stricter standards...

U.S. EPA's WaterTA program is an umbrella for a range of services that directly serve the regulated community. In this episode we're chatting about how the program is reducing barriers to capacity development, including funding accessibility, by matching water system requests with local technical assistance providers. Visit  drinkingwaterpodcast.org to learn more and find the full show notes for t...

This is an exciting week for Tap Talk: Our newest episode is our first fully dedicated to decentralized wastewater and septic systems! Steve and Jennifer welcome Dr. Sara Heger, an industry expert, researcher, and trainer from the University of Minnesota's Onsite Sewage Treatment Program . Whether you're a water professional or a homeowner with a septic system, listen for an introduction to the re...

We're officially halfway through Tap Talk's fifth season! This week, we welcome some guests from our state's neighbor to the West: Mindy Uhle, Bureau Chief of Environmental Health at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, and Erik Day, a Senior Environmental Specialist at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Mindy and Erik work on Iowa's Private Well Grants Program, a cross-agency...

In our latest episode of Tap Talk, our guest is Molly Sullivan, a Program Engineer at Community Engineering Corps (CECorps), a partnership that provides pro-bono engineering and consulting services for infrastructure projects to communities in the United States, the US Territories, and tribal lands. A significant portion of CECorps' projects center on water and wastewater infrastructure, and Molly...

Next up on Tap Talk, Steve and Jennifer welcome Dr. Sidney Innerebner of Colorado-based Indigo Water Group to the show. Sidney is certified as an engineer and as both a wastewater operator and industrial operator in Colorado, and has been working in various aspects of the environmental services field since 1990. At Indigo, much of her work revolves around operator training, both in-person and onli...

This week on Tap Talk, Jennifer and Steve chatted with Dr. Andrea Albertin and Dr. Yilin Zhuang of the University of Florida Extension's Florida Well Owner Network (FWON). From intensified hurricanes to rising sea levels to eroding coasts, climate change has brought a number of significant environmental challenges to Florida. The state's millions of well and septic users — common in urban areas as...

Tap Talk hits 50 episodes! For this landmark episode, we welcome Matt Jones to the show. Matt is the manager of the Continuing Education Credit Program for the Water Environment Federation (WEF). Steve and Jennifer discuss with him the complexities of certifying and delivering continuing education credits to operators and engineers in all 50 states, particularly for large in-person events like WEF...

In the premiere episode of our fifth season, Steve and Jennifer welcome Terry Morse to Tap Talk. Terry is the CEO of the National Ground Water Association , as well as its charitable arm, The Groundwater Foundation . Last year, the foundation launched Water Well Wish , an endeavor to make sure that every American has access to clean, safe water by funding the construction of wells for families in...

In the final episode of our fourth season, Steve and Jennifer welcome Travis Loop to Tap Talk to discuss how to use solutions-focused journalism and storytelling to address our various water problems. Travis is the founder of waterloop , a nonprofit media outlet exploring the progress and successes in tackling water challenges in the United States through podcasts, videos, and social media content...

The latest episode of Tap Talk delves back into the topic of how to develop and train the newest generation of the water workforce. Jennifer and Steve talk with Matt Maas, the director of the Environmental Resources Training Center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The ERTC is a one-of-a-kind facility with working pilot plants and laboratories that allow students to experience hands-on...

This week we are bringing you part two of our conversation with Brenda Culler and Joshua Pecek of Cleveland Water 's lead service line replacement team! The substantial efforts of their team provide a model for other water systems of all sizes who are developing their own plans to replace the millions of lead service lines in the United States.  Visit drinkingwaterpodcast.org to learn more and fin...

The EPA estimates there are over nine million lead service lines to replace in the United States. During this week's Tap Talk, we learn about the efforts at Cleveland Water to replace these service lines that have landed Cleveland and Cuyahoga County ahead of the curve. We welcome Cleveland Water's Brenda Culler, Lead Program Manager, and Joshua Pecek, Work Administrator of the Lead Service Line R...

On this week's Tap Talk, we're talking about a topic that is becoming ever more important for water utilities: cybersecurity. Steve and Jennifer discuss how essential it is to protect the digital systems at even the smallest of water systems and the basic steps that those smallest utilities can take with Jennifer Lyn Walker, the Director of Infrastructure Cyber Defense for  WaterISAC . Visit drink...

This week, we continue our conversation with Mike Sullivan and Shannon Drosnock, utility directors from suburban Philadelphia. Mike and Shannon lead a successful internship program for Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Region 1. In this episode, they talk with Steve and Jennifer about the logistics of their program, how they appeal to potential participants, and how the model could be duplicated...

This week, we welcome two guests from Pennsylvania: Mike Sullivan, executive director of the Northampton Bucks County Municipal Authority; and Shannon Drosnock, executive director of the Montgomery Township Municipal Sewer Authority. Mike and Shannon lead a successful internship program for Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Region 1, in the greater Philadelphia area. They talk with Steve and Jenn...

This week, Jennifer and Steve are chatting with Amie Shei from the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts , which for five years has been lobbying for the implementation of statewide regulations on private well water quality. Listen to learn how data from sampling private wells has been essential to these efforts and other strategies to advocate for the safekeeping of private wells. Visit drin...

Bob Dunlevy of U.S. EPA's Region 7 (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska) has been hosting and facilitating an asset management stakeholder group and conference call for 15 years. This week, Steve and Jennifer talk with Bob about building understanding of asset management in water utilities and how informal communities can be an essential tool for knowledge building.  Visit drinkingwaterpodcast.org to...

The Rural Communities Assistance Partnership ( RCAP ), WaterOperator.org's principal collaborative partner, has been providing technical assistance to America's rural communities for 50 years. Today, we chat with RCAP CEO Olga Morales-Pate about the challenges of ensuring the sustainability of rural communities, what it means to be a technical assistance provider, and why passion is the most impor...

The methods with which we teach and train water operators have evolved as the world changes around us, but one thing hasn't changed: It takes skill and effort on the parts of both the teacher and learner to ensure the most effective possible training. In this episode, we chat with Ramzi Mahmood of the Office of Water Programs at California State University, Sacramento, about what he's learned from...

In the time we've spent building and maintaining WaterOperator.org and its family of websites, the importance of building strong partnerships and teams has never been more apparent. In our Season Four premier episode, Tap Talk hosts Steve and Jennifer Wilson look back on the beginnings of WaterOperator.org, discuss the evolution and expansion of our programs, and the value of our partnerships in h...

Regionalization is not just one thing, but a spectrum of partnership opportunities for efficiency and economies of scale. In this episode we're chatting with RCAP's Laura Landes and Sarah Buck about the fundamentals of regionalization and why these conversations are so important to the sustainability of small and rural water systems. Visit drinkingwaterpodcast.org to learn more and find the full s...

As we approach 50 years of the Safe Drinking Water Act, public water systems and state regulators continue to face new and long-standing challenges. In our conversation with Alan Roberson, Executive Director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, we discuss the most pressing issues as well as efforts to increase compliance and sustainability for the most disadvantaged communiti...