Entex Technologies

Recently I spent two beautiful days in Portland, Oregon attending the Biofilm Reactor Technology conference. While the weather and scenery were spectacular, I saw little of it since I was indoors in seminars organized jointly by the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the International Water Association (IWA).  The conference was remarkable for a number of reasons, including the attendance and the subject matter.

Almost 200 people attended, a major increase for a conference which in the past has been relatively small and very focused. Notable was the strong international flair with attendees from 26 countries.  Among the organizers were Josh Boltz, of CH2M Hill, who served as Co-chair of the Scientific Committee, Julian Sandino, also of CH2M Hill, on the organizing committee and Entex’s own Sarah Hubbell. Many attendees were also well known in the IFAS community, including professionals like Jim McQuarrie of CH2M Hill, Chris Debarbadillo of Black & Veatch and Jamie Gellner of Hazen & Sawyer.

For me it was a great time to catch up in a small setting with old friends and colleagues, such as Cliff Merritt of Owens Corning, with whom we installed a fixed media IFAS system in an SBR.

While there were two parallel tracks of presentations, I couldn’t help but notice the IFAS sessions were standing room only, while the other track was lightly attended. Interestingly, while the presentations covered a broad range of issues, two distinct themes emerged for me. First, there was a strong focus on modeling, and the need to better predict system performance during the design stage. Denny Parker of Brown & Caldwell led the way in trying to pull together a coordinated effort in this area. Indeed, we (at Entex) spend a great deal of time refining and modifying our design models to better predict performance. The research program we led jointly with Dr. Andrew Schuler (then of Duke University) over three years at the South Durham facility has yielded a number of insights into the modeling process.

The second theme I noticed is best summarized by a presentation from Heather Phillips of Black & Veatch entitled “The Second Generation of IFAS and MBBR: Lessons to Apply”.  One takeaway from her talk  was that we’ve had almost a decade of well performing IFAS and MBBR systems operating in the US, and we as an industry are incorporating best practices in a new generation of systems. I agree with her assessment, and Entex is actively incorporating new improvements such as our patent pending retention screen scour system.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Entex’s Dick Perhson participating as a co-author along with Dipankar Sen of Santa Clara Valley Water Authority and Rip Copithorne of Stearns & Wheler and others on Green House Gas Emissions modeling, an intriguing and timely subject. There were some 70 or more papers and posters at the conference, all quite strong and well presented. The papers are all available from the Water Environment Federation.

The Biofilms Reactor Technology conference was a reminder of the broad and growing acceptance of IFAS and attached growth systems in our industry. Many challenges lie ahead, but I remain excited, and I look forward to the 2010 WEFTEC conference held this year in New Orleans in early October.  This conference usually hosts up to 18,000 or more with a broad international presence. Entex will be there exhibiting again for our 7^th year.  We’ll also be co-authoring two papers, continuing our string of presenting or co-authoring papers at every WEFTEC.  If you’re planning to attend, be sure to stop by our booth.