This month, an estimated 11,000 water professionals will convene in Boston, Mass., for the American Water Works Association?s (AWWA) Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE14). Attending the association?s annual conference is nothing new for people in the water industry. Perhaps for some, attending each year has turned into somewhat of a formality.

In 2002, the worst drought in 300 years dehydrated the State of Colorado, leaving it a crispy brown tinderbox.Denver Water scrambled to adapt. The northern side of Denver?s collection system only has about a fourth of the water that?s available on the southern end of the system. This already-smaller north side was dangerously close to running dry, forcing operators to jury-rig a distribution system that would deliver water from the south side to the parched north.

The Capacity Optimization Fee is designed to optimize the wastewater plant?s capacity to serve the community by assessing customers for discharge capacity they are permitted for but may not be using. Some customers may wish to avoid paying the COFee by reducing the permitted capacity above 15 percent of the highest usage in the past 12 months.

As St. Louis has grown, so has the Missouri River Wastewater Treatment Plant, one of seven treatment plants in the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD). Yet, over two decades, the district has implemented each upgrade, capacity increase and structural addition without taking the plant offline for significant periods of time.

The City of Newark, Ohio recently sought relief from excessive electric bills through significant process upgrades. The Licking River Wastewater Treatment Plant on the east side of the city completed installation of new, highly efficient bubble diffusers in its aeration basins, WAS tanks and a post-aeration tank.

For our June Q&A, UIM sat down with Jesse Berst, founder and chairman of the Smart Cities Council to get a fresh perspective on how cities are using “smart” technology. Berst was one of the pioneering thought leaders and the chief analyst of SmartGridNews.com, the internet?s oldest, largest and highest-ranked smart grid site.

Announced in April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is awarding $12.7 million in grants to help small drinking and wastewater systems ? those serving fewer than 10,000 people ? and to private well owners in 2014.

The Utah State University (USU) Buried Structures Laboratory has published a comprehensive study on PVC pipe excavations, testing and life cycle analysis. USU, located in Logan, Utah, is also home to the Utah Water Research Laboratory and has significantly contributed to water and wastewater research internationally for more than 50 years.

In an important victory for U.S. water utilities and their customers, a House-Senate committee last week released legislation to create a pilot Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Authority (WIFIA) that would lower the cost of renewing America?s aging water infrastructure.

Hundreds of water and wastewater professionals gathered in Washington, D.C., April 7-9, for the National Water Policy Forum & Fly-In as part of Water Week 2014. Conference leaders and attendees discussed key legislative, regulatory and legal developments on a broad array of water issues with members of Congress and federal regulators.