The NC AWWA-WEA Annual Symposium Program Committee is soliciting presenters for the 21st Annual Spring Symposium that will take place virtually on May 17 – June 1, 2021. Technical sessions will cover water, wastewater and special topics, running concurrently with the Operations & Maintenance track. In addition to the typical format, this year we are also considering holding several “mini-forums”. Having polled some of our leadership, we’ve developed the following categories for these potential “mini-forums”:

• 2020 - Hindsight and Looking Ahead: What challenges have you faced and overcome from the Covid pandemic? Maintenance concerns? Revenue shortfalls? Changes to water and wastewater flow usage and patterns? How do you plan to carry these lessons learned into your future operations plans?

   

• Next Generation Master Planning, Asset Management, Project Management

   

• Workforce issues: Whether it’s finding workers during a pandemic, replacing retiring staff or tapping into non-traditional workers.

   

  Other topics members have suggested for presentations:

• Lessons learned Risk & Resiliency updates
• Wastewater epidemiology, in particular for Covid-19
• Update of Lead & Copper Rule
• PFOS/PFAS issues and lessons learned
• Wastewater collection - flushables, odor control in sewers, FOG
• Modeling updates - climate change for wastewater
• AMI data for distribution system optimization
• Utility regionalization

Please note: these are not the only topics that we are requesting submittals for nor can we guarantee that if your submittal falls into one of these categories that your presentation will be selected. These are merely suggestions based on informal polling conducted.

Abstracts are due Friday, March 19, 2021. Selected presenters will receive further instructions on final presentation format at a later date. Full papers are no longer required for this symposium. However, professional engineers who would like to claim credit for their paper being published on NC AWWA-WEA’s website will be required to submit a paper per direction of the NC Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors. A letter detailing this requirement can be found on our website.

Other selected presenters are also welcome to submit their papers to be published. Credit for publishing will be in accordance with the rules of their licensing board. At the conclusion of the Annual Symposium all papers to be published will be posted on the Annual Symposium page of www.ncsafewater.org.

Guidelines for Electronic Submissions: Abstracts should be 200-400 words and saved in this abstract management system.

If you have abstract submission questions, please contact Mona Ellum, Symposium Program Chair, at 828-989-8027 or Mona.Ellum@EllumEngineering.com. Abstracts and forms received after March 19, 2021 will not be considered.

Click HERE to submit your abstract.

Deadline March 19, 2021.