Rural Water Digs In
Vulnerability Assessment Workshops
Workers from Eatherly Constructors of Garden City, Kansas,
install a six-inch waterline to connect water plants in St. James
and Butterfield, part of an expansion by Red Rock Rural Water
System. For more details, see the story on page 4.
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and
Minnesota Rural Water Association (MRWA) will be offering
workshops on security and vulnerability assessments for
small water systems in 2003.
A recently enacted law (June 2002) calls for all community
water systems serving a population greater than 3,300 to
conduct a vulnerability assessment of its system to attacks or
other types of intentional acts intended to disrupt service and
submit it to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The MDH/MRWA workshops are intended primarily for
systems serving 3,300 or fewer people, but larger systems
are invited to attend. Even though systems in the 3,300 or
fewer group are not required by law to perform a
vulnerability assessment, they are encouraged to do so and to
take steps to ensure the security of their systems.
The first workshop will be held on Tuesday afternoon,
March 4, as part of the MRWA Technical Conference in
St. Cloud.
Meanwhile, a Security Vulnerability Assessment Guide
is available on the MDH Drinking Water web site at
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water.
Upcoming Certification Exam Dates
March 6, St. Cloud
March 28, Rochester
April, Southwest Minnesota
April 3, Bloomington
April 11, International Falls
June 13, Brainerd Lakes Area
See calendar on back page for more details
Winter 2002-03
Volume Ten/3
Inside:
The top of a water tower provides a panorama of the scenic
campus at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.
The view isn’t available from inside the tower, however, where
scuba diver Julio Maschung spent most of his time during a
recent inspection. For more, turn to page 3.
Training News
Disinfection of Water Storage Facilities
Confined Space
Climax and Sabin Selected for
Arsenic Demonstration Program
Waterworks Quiz
1. Two important considerations in locating storage are
By Karla Peterson
The U.S. EPA recently announced that the Minnesota
cities of Climax and Sabin have been selected for the Arsenic
Treatment Demonstration Program. Several Minnesota
communities submitted proposals, which included
information on water quality, available space for equipment
and wastewater disposal, and operator availability. Only 12
communities throughout the United States were chosen to
participate.
The objective of the demonstration program is to evaluate
the efficiency and effectiveness of drinking water treatment
technologies to meet the new arsenic maximum contaminant
level of 10 micrograms per liter (or parts per billion) for
varying source water quality conditions. Treatment
technologies may be new or added and may include process
modifications and engineering approaches. The program
will evaluate the reliability of technologies for small systems;
gauge the simplicity of operation, maintenance, and required
operator skills; determine cost-effectiveness; and
characterize treatment residuals.
Each participating community will be matched with a
treatment technology and vendor. The community will
operate the treatment facility for one year. At the end of the
year, the community may choose to continue using the
treatment technology or return the treatment equipment to
the vendor. The results of the demonstration program will be
useful to other Minnesota communities in determining the
most appropriate treatment for their particular water quality.
Once again, congratulations to Climax and Sabin!
environmental impact and:
a. proximity to treatment facilities.
b. maintenance of system pressure.
c. distance from pumping station.
d. distance from load-control center.
2. For continuous and effective removal of turbidity and
most organic compounds causing tastes and odors, the
minimum depth of granular activated carbon as a filter
media is recommended to be:
a. not less than 12 inches.
b. 24 inches.
c. 36 to 42 inches.
d. none of the above.
3. Which of the following fluoride compounds contains
the greatest percentage of fluoride?
a. fluosilicic acid (H2SiF6)
b. sodium fluoride (NaF)
c. sodium silicofluoride (Na2SiF6)
d. all are about the same
Bonus Question
Translate: Where there are visible vapors having their
prevalence in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is
conflagration.
Answers on page 3
Cool Web Sites
Drinking Water Institute: http://www.mnawwa.org/Education/youth_ed.html
Wet in the City:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
The Groundwater Foundation:
http://www.wetcity.org
http://www.cdc.gov
http://www.groundwater.org
EPA Drinking Water for Kids:
http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/kids
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov
United States Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov
Safe Drinking Water Act
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/sdwa/sdwa.html
National Safety Council:
http://www.nsc.org
Alcor Life Extension Foundation (where Ted Williams is vitrified): http://www.alcor.org
Pass It On
Waterline
Published quarterly by the
Drinking Water Protection Section, Minnesota Department of Health
Editor: Stew Thornley
Staff:
Dick Clark
Jeanette Boothe
Noel Hansen
To request this document in another format,
call 651/215-0700; TDD 651/215-0707 or toll-free through the
Minnesota Relay Service, 1/800/627-3529 (ask for 651/215-0700).
Past issues of the Waterline (in PDF format) are available at:
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/
water/binfo/newsletters/archivedmain.html
2
Spotted by a member of Dogbert’s New
Ruling Class and reported in the Dilbert
newsletter: A sign above a drinking fountain at
Shanghai International Aiport that read, “This
water has been passed by health inspectors.”
Capacity Development Report
All states were required by the EPA to send
a capacity development report to their
governors. States were free to develop their
own content and format. Minnesota’s report,
which provided a review of the MDH
public water system regulation, is at:
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water/
iinfo/dwrf/capacity.html.
St. John’s Tower Gets a Cleaning
Assisted by Will Stennard, Julio Maschung emerges from
the water tower at St. John’s University in Collegeville,
Minnesota, after cleaning and inspecting the 250,000gallon tank on August 16. Maschung vacuumed sediment
while also providing a look at the interior through a
camera on his helmet and closed-circuit television
equipment, which was monitored by dive controller
Darrick Cusick on the ground. This dive team from
Liquid Engineering Corporation of Billings, Montana,
travels around the country inspecting, cleaning, and
repairing water storage reservoirs. They work for two
months, then get two weeks off, and alternate the duties
of diver, dive controller, and tender. Tom Vogel, the chief
engineer for St. John’s University, said he liked the
process since it allowed the tower to remain operational.
“Anytime you have to drain your tower and make other
provisions, it’s kind of a pain,” Vogel said. “Water isn’t
free. Why dump it all if you don’t have to?”
Water Storage Facility Disinfection
Water Tower Safety
By Mark Sweers
By Bill Anderl
Over the years we have experienced many bacteriological
problems in water supply systems that have originated in a
finished-water storage tank. Many of the problems occurred
in tanks that were not properly disinfected before the tank
was returned to service following maintenance. Regardless of
whether it was the water utility’s personnel or a contractor
who entered the tank, or whether the maintenance was a
routine inspection and cleaning or something major such as
interior repainting or structural work, proper disinfection
procedures need to be followed to protect the bacteriological
quality of the water.
If you have a maintenance contract with a tower company
or are having your tank painted, check the contract and see
who is responsible for the chlorination, and then make sure it
gets done. If you do not have the training and equipment to
climb your tower or enter your tank, make it the contractor’s
responsibility. Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions of your
contractor; remember, you’re paying the bill and are
responsible for the water quality in your system. Did they
lock the access hatch? Who has a key to the hatch and
ladder? Did they check the vent(s) and overflow for proper
screening? Did they look for other sanitary defects that may
affect your water quality? Is the coating in good condition?
These are questions you should be asking your contractor.
American Water Works Association (AWWA) Standard for
Disinfection of Water-Storage Facilities, C652-92, provides
information on three different methods of disinfection that
may be used prior to returning a storage facility to service.
This standard also includes disinfection procedures when
conducting underwater inspections by divers.
The three methods of chlorination—explained in detail in
the standard, which also provides information on the amounts
of chemical needed—are chlorination of the entire tank such
that, at the end of the appropriate retention time, the water
has a free chlorine residual of not less than 10 parts per
million (ppm); a covering of all interior surfaces that come in
contact with water with a solution of 200 ppm chlorine; and
chlorination of a full tank of water having a free chlorine
residual of 2 ppm after 24 hours.
Water operators may enjoy the challenge of climbing a tower
but often fail to realize the risk factors involved. Work on an
elevated water tower involves extreme hazards. Some of the
more important safety concerns that relate to water tower
maintenance and inspection include ladders, fall protection,
personal protective equipment, confined space entry
procedures, rescue/emergency procedures, mutual-aid
agreements, liability, and weather.
Some water systems contract tower work, but this
approach still requires oversight and monitoring by the local
operator. Fire and rescue workers need to be provided
advance notice of water tower work, and water operators
need to be involved with pre-incident planning for rescue work.
Details of a recent worker fatality in a southern Minnesota
community have not yet been released by Minnesota
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In
reviewing information on other water tower fatalities, it is
likely that some of the same accident factors will be
identified. Accident prevention recommendations are usually
provided by Minnesota OSHA after the investigation and will
focus on:
• Fall protection equipment and training program
• Hazard recognition and avoidance
• Ladder safety training
• Confined space program requirements
• Rescue planning for elevated work
Perhaps you are thinking that the training and safety
equipment are too expensive and time-consuming for a small
community. Think again. What if the lack of training or
equipment cost a life or caused a serious injury? Maybe it is
worth the time to have a practice tower rescue with the fire
department or to replace some old equipment.
If a new tower is being planned, talk to the engineer about
the operator safety concerns you have and eliminate them in
the design stage.
Answers to Quiz
1. b 2. b 3. a
Bonus Question: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
3
Tackling the Challenges of a Region
Rural Water Works to Serve Those Who Need Water
“We do little promoting of
our services,” says Dominic
Jones, manager of Red Rock
Rural Water System in
southwestern Minnesota.
“Most of our business comes
from word of mouth.”
Acquiring new customers
has never been a problem for
Red Rock; however, finding
additional sources of water to
meet constantly growing
demands is an ongoing
challenge. Unlike a municipal
water utility, the supply area for
a rural water system is not neatly
confined by city limits. Red Rock
attempts to get water to where it is
needed—farms, lake homes, even
cities—in a service area that now
encompasses approximately 3,200
square miles.
John Baerg, one of the founders and
still a member of Red Rock’s Board of
Commissioners, notes that Red Rock—
with its wellfield and treatment plant
outside Windom—is “on the fringes of
where there is water,” which differentiates it from the other two rural water
systems in southwestern Minnesota:
Lincoln-Pipestone in Lake Benton and
Rock County in Luverne. In addition to
its three wells, Red Rock has been
purchasing water from other systems,
such as Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water
and the cities of Balaton and Windom.
It is now in the process of hooking up to
the city of St. James’s water supply. This
was made possible by an expansion to
the St. James plant, which was partially
paid for by Red Rock Rural Water
System.
Baerg recalls the roots of the Red Rock
system. A farmer on the outskirts of
Butterfield, Baerg had a private well that
produced water so hard that, “We
couldn’t keep faucets in the house. The
hard water ate up the chrome, and we
had to keep changing them. The
softener didn’t work very well. It would
plug up all the time.”
Other farmers in the area had the same
problem with the water, if they had
water at all. Jim Evers spent more than
$50,000 on well drilling but came up dry
in a search for water on his
property. “For the rest of us, it was a
quality issue,” said Baerg. “For Jim, he
just didn’t have water. He had livestock
and was having to haul water in.”
In the late 1970s, a brother of Evers
to the west hooked up to a rural water
system and was pleased with the results,
prompting Evers—desperate for any
kind of water—to call the Minnesota
Rural Water Association and inquire
about starting a rural water system in
Cottonwood, Murray, and Watonwan
counties. Along with an attorney and
engineering firm, a group of farmers
began meeting in Evers’s garage.
Like the others, Baerg had no
involvement in water supply to this
point; he was merely a farmer in search
of good water. He was also skeptical
about whether what they were
considering could really be done. “We
had been told that we couldn’t
do this—run miles of water
pipe between farms. The
engineer assured us it would
work, but I didn’t believe it
until we did it.”
Even with these doubts,
Baerg and others set out to
recruit 300 customers, the
number required by Farmers
Home Administration (now
U. S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development) to
finance the project. “We
signed up those first 300 people
without any idea where the water would
come from,” he said. “We didn’t have a
water supply. We didn’t even know
where the wells would be because the
wells would be determined by where
there was water and where the users
were.”
A substantial financial commitment
was required to sign up for rural water.
Baerg notes that the exact cost of $7,178
was “a number we just picked out at the
time since we had no idea where we
were at.
“We got our 300 sign ups. They
promised to pay us more than $7,000—
signing a document saying we could
assess their property for that amount—
and we were selling nothing.” Nothing
but a promise, that is.
Red Rock—Continued on page 5
John Baerg, left, was skeptical about the ability to pipe water between farms when he
and others began signing up farmers for the Red Rock Rural Water System, which has
continually expanded since it went on-line in 1985. The latest expansion requires the
purchase of water from the city of St. James. Here, Baerg stands in front of the new
St. James filter with Red Rock manager Dominic Jones and St. James chief water plant
operator Mark Sturm.
4
Continued from page 4
However, it turned out to be several
years before Baerg and the others could
deliver on their promise. Litigation with
a well driller delayed the process.
Finally, in 1984, the project was bid and
construction began. Many of the
customers were roughly in a line between
the towns of Delft, Dovray, and Garvin.
In between was the city of Jeffers, which
became the headquarters for Red Rock
Rural Water System. A treatment plant
and 100,000-gallon tower went up a few
miles to the south, outside of Windom.
Nearby, on the banks of the Des Moines
River, two wells were drilled.
The system went on-line in late 1985.
“I got my water between Christmas and
New Year’s,” said Baerg. “What a
change.” The hardness of the water
coming into his home went from 105
grains per gallon (the levels out of their
well) to 25 grains per gallon. The salt
consumption for his water softener
dropped by nearly two-thirds. Other
customers also had positive results with
the switch to rural water.
Red Rock Rural Water System has dual
filters to reduce iron and manganese at
its treatment plant near Windom.
The list of rural customers rose to close
to 400, and in 1990 Red Rock also
began supplying water to the city of
Wilder. With the growth came additions
to the treatment plant, which has a pair
of gravity filters on the outside of the
building to reduce levels of iron and
manganese. The demand, from both
rural customers and other cities,
continued, requiring an expansion of the
system in 1993, the year that Jones
became its manager.
“This was the Murray County expansion,” Jones explained, “which included
a lot of homes around Lake Shetek.”
Red Rock added a third well at this time
and also began purchasing water from
the city of Balaton, in the northwest
corner of the system. In addition, it
entered into a water-purchase agreement
with Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water
System. Lincoln-Pipestone is on the
other side of a continental divide, in the
Missouri River Drainage Basin.
Pumping water from there to the
Mississippi River watershed poses some
administrative problems. “It’s the only
source we take water from on the wrong
side of the divide,” Jones said. “Under
the water-purchase agreement with
Lincoln-Pipestone, which was approved
by the Department of Natural Resources,
we’re only taking 50 gallons per minute,
a small amount that we use to blend the
water. Balaton’s water is relatively hard.
Lincoln Pipestone’s is relatively soft. It’s
a 50-50 blend and comes out with a
hardness of 30 grains instead of 44,
which was what we got from Balaton.”
Requests for service continued and
resulted in more upgrades for both Red
Rock Rural Water System and the city
of Windom, which was already
planning upgrades to its treatment plant
and an expansion of its well field. With
Red Rock needing additional capacity,
the two systems worked out a waterpurchase agreement. In 1996, the
Minnesota legislature approved a grant
to Red Rock to add a 500,000-gallon
water tower along with a transmission
line to connect with Windom’s water
supply. Around that time, Rural
Development came through with a loan
that allowed for another 240 miles of
mainline service to provide water to Odin
and Ormsby. These cities were added
to the system in 1997 with Dundee
coming on board the following year.
The end of the century did not bring
any reduction in the cities and rural
residents wanting to sign up with Red
Rock. Faced with high radium levels,
the city of Butterfield needed an
alternative supply of water, and an
emergency connection was made in
2001. Meanwhile, plans were underway
for a multi-phase expansion project that
includes Red Rock purchasing water
from the city of St. James. Toward this
end, Red Rock is helping to finance an
upgrade to the St. James treatment plant
5
that includes the addition of a backwater
reclaim filter and a 500 gallon-per-minute
(gpm) gravity filter as well as the
rehabilitation of two existing 750-gpm
filters. Mark Sturm, the chief water plant
operator for St. James, says the timing
of the project was very good for them.
“We had been looking at expanding for
years and rehabbing our old filters.”
The first phase, which began last May
and will be substantially complete by the
end of 2002, will bring service to an
additional 213 customers. Through the
summer of 2002, crews from Eatherly
Constructors, Inc. of Garden City,
Kansas, installed a six-inch mainline
from the St. James plant to the treatment
facility in Butterfield, a distance of
approximately eight miles.
Directional drilling was used to get the
pipe under streams, roads, and driveways
with most of the installation being done
with open cuts. As much as possible,
the pipe was installed along the edges of
fields adjacent to the roadway rather than
in the ditch. “We like to go in the field
with the pipe,” says Baerg, “because in
the ditch the equipment is crooked, and
we have to put the pipe in the ground
with five feet of cover because of the
freezing.” Although it requires easements
from landowners to use the fields, Baerg
says its worth it since the trenchers,
backhoes, and excavators operate better
on level ground.
Service lines bring water to individual
customers. All the new users paid the
same amount, regardless of how far off
the mainline they are. One of the
farthest is Wayne Hanson, who lives a
mile south of the mainline. Concerns
over water quality caused Hanson to sign
up for the service. He had a 36-footdeep well with very hard water—more
than 100 grains per gallon. Hanson no
longer has livestock on his farm but still
raises corn and soybeans.
Baerg says some of the customers with
livestock are seeing the biggest difference
in switching to rural water. “Many have
found that the better quality water
produces healthier livestock. For most
customers, the hookup to rural water pays
for itself. I have yet to meet a customer
who is unhappy with the water. I can’t
explain the explosion that there is [with
the demand for rural water].”
The explosion is not just from rural
customers or even cities, says Jones.
Red Rock—Continued on page 6
customers will be added in 2003 as part of the second phase
“We have a number of wet industries abounding in southwest
of the current expansion. “People are begging us to come to
Minnesota,” he explained. “Ethanol and soybean plants, the
them, so we’re looking at a third phase,” says Baerg.
beef and pork industries are consuming water at a high rate.
As always, it comes down to finding additional sources of
They do their design based on the location of the corn, beef,
water. Red Rock is now involved in a joint water-research
poultry—whatever their industry is—and they put their plant
project with Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water and the city of
next to a rail line or highway. They
Worthington. However, the results of
look for gas or electric lines, but they
test drilling have not yet identified any
forget that they need water.
new sources. “They’ve been battling
“Our biggest issue is deciding what
that issue [finding good water] since
our priorities are—economic growth
I’ve been here,” says Jones, “and
or giving people in southwest
they’ve been battling it before I was
Minnesota potable water on a wide
here.”
regional basis.”
The battles will continue, no doubt,
With 1,000 miles of mainline, Red
as Red Rock and other rural water
Rock now provides service to more
systems continue their mission to
than 1,100 rural customers and eight
ensure people get good quality water
cities. More than 200 additional rural New customer Wayne Hanson with Dominic Jones. where it is needed.
Red Rock Rural Water—Continued from page 5
On by Pressure, Off by Flow
determine what station discharge pressure was necessary in
order to provide a minimum acceptable pressure to each user
after system elevation and frictional losses.
“The algorithm that resulted, simplified, is that flow
determines the minimum acceptable pressure at pump station
discharge. A drop below this pressure required the next
higher pumping stage while a drop in flow below the stage’s
flow set point would allow a drop in pumping stage. Each
pump stage had its own set of minimum acceptable discharge
pressures and flows.
“For many, this was further simplified to, ‘On by pressure,
off by flow.’ This proved to be a great improvement over
earlier pressure/pressure-control systems. A small, low-head
pump could be used for the lower pump stage, with each
succeeding stage using a larger, higher-head pump. Adequate
pressures were provided to all users at all flow conditions.”
“That’s the trick,” says Janzen, “stopping the pumps based
on flow rather than pressure.” By doing this and regulating
discharge pressure with pressure-reducing valves, Janzen says
a system could maintain pressure at the farthest ends of its
system.
DeWild Grant Reckert and Associates Company of Rock
Rapids, Iowa, the engineer on the current Red Rock Rural
Water System expansion, at that time used a computer model
to calculate the theoretical pressure at the ends of a system.
“The model was to control the pumps in a booster station
based on demand,” says Gordon Krause, the head of the
Water Resources Department for DeWild Grant Reckert. “We
refer to that as our pressure-flow system, where you’d be
pumping directly into a distribution system as opposed to an
elevated tank where, on that system, you’d just stop the pumps
when the tank was full and start it when it needed water.
“It has allowed us to design systems without having
elevated storage. During the early development of rural
water systems, there wasn’t enough money to build the
systems with the elevated tank and the gravity systems that
we’re using now, so this was a lower-cost alternative that
allowed us to build some systems that probably would not
have been built if we didn’t have that.”
Decades after the Rural Electrification Administration
brought electricity to farmers, the same concept began with
an even more important resource—water.
Jerry Janzen, now an engineering manager for U. S. Filter
of Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, recalls the role that rural
water systems played in getting water where it was needed.
“We’re now seeing water for the farm industry being a lot
more extensive than it was 20 years ago, when farmers just
pretty much lived with the rainfall they had,” he says.
More than 20 years ago, Janzen was with Dynamic
Systems, Inc., which had been involved in the development
of rural water systems in the Dakotas in the 1970s. The
company concluded that the traditional method of building
rural water systems—which essentially mimicked a municipal
water supply by attempting to control pressure throughout
the system by the placement of elevated tanks in strategic
locations—didn’t make sense in sparsely populated areas.
“Within a city, particularly with loops being used, there is
seldom more than a mile from a tower to the user,” explains
Dynamic Systems, Inc. founder Bob Minnihan. “A large city
will build in loops with large lines so that friction loss
variations are a very small part of delivery pressure to the
user. While this approach was used in early rural water
systems, it quickly became cost prohibitive in systems less
dense in users and with longer transmission lines.
Consultants at that time attempted to solve the cost
problem by designing distribution systems using smaller pipe,
which could be plowed in directly rather than trenched.
However, in many of the systems of this type, frictional losses
of up to 50 psi [pounds per square inch] were normal. The
first generation of controls were inefficient and unreliable.”
Minnihan, working with the consultants designing the
water systems, concluded that frictional losses at high flows
were of greatest concern and that, as flows approached
design capacity, distribution frictional loss would statistically
approach design losses. “This realization allowed each user’s
supply pressure to be predicted operationally based on the
source pumping station’s discharge pressure and flow,”
Minnihan said. “From this knowledge, it was possible to
6
Spring 2003 Schools
The 2003 Metro Waterworks Operators School will be held from Tuesday, April 1 through Thursday, April 3 at the Thunderbird
Hotel in Bloomington. The certification exams will be held on Thursday afternoon. A Competent Person workshop will be
offered with both classroom and on-site training on April 2. There will be an additional $35 registration fee for those taking the
Competent Person training, and it will be limited to the first 50 to register. Participants in the school will receive 16 credit hours
for their attendance. The registration for the school is $115 ($150 after March 17 or at the door).
Other spring schools include the Southeast School, March 26-28, Best Western Apache, Rochester; Southwest School, April
(exact date and location to be announced); Northeast School, April 9-11, Holiday Inn, International Falls; and Central School,
June 11-13 at either Cragun’s or Ruttger’s in the Brainerd Lakes area.
Below is a registration form for the Metro School. The Spring 2003 Waterline will have the entire Metro School agenda with
a registration form that will include the other three-day spring schools.
MRWA Conference
The 2003 Minnesota Rural Water
Association (MRWA) Technical
Conference will be held at the St. Cloud
Civic Center from Tuesday, March 4
through Thursday, March 6. For more
information, contact the MRWA office
at 218/685-5197 or via e-mail at
[email protected].
2003 Teleconferences
The American Water Works Association has set Thursday, March 13 and
Thursday, November 6 as the dates for its 2003 teleconferences. The topics will be
Water Storage in March and Water Quality in November. The downlink locations
serving the Minnesota Section will be Hennepin County Technical College in Brooklyn
Park, the Minnesota Department of Health in St. Paul, Memorial Union Hall on the
campus of the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and Lake Superior
College in Duluth as well as sites in North Mankato and Bemidji. Participants will
receive 4 contact hours. All AWWA members will receive registration information
in the mail. A registration form for the March 13, 2003 teleconference is below.
REGISTRATION FORM FOR TELECONFERENCE AND SPRING SCHOOLS
You may combine multiple fees on one check if more than one person is attending a school; however, please make a copy of
this form for each person. Questions regarding certification, contact Cindy Cook at 651/215-0751. Questions regarding
registration, contact Jeanette Boothe at 651/215-1321.
AWWA Teleconference: Water Storage.
March 13, 2003. Fee: $65 ($85 after March 7 or at the door) for all but North Mankato; $55 ($75 after March 7 or at
the door) for North Mankato (no lunch served at this site).
Check location you wish to attend:
____ Minnesota Department of Health Distance Learning Center, Metro Square Annex, St. Paul, Minnesota
____ Hennepin County Technical College, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
____ University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota
____ Lake Superior College, Duluth, Minnesota
____ Northwest Technical College, Bemidji, Minnesota
____ South Central Technical College, North Mankato, Minnesota
Southeast School, March 26-28, 2003, Best Western Apache, Rochester. Fee: $125 ($135 at the door).
Metro School, April 1-3, 2003, Thunderbird Hotel, Bloomington. Fee: $115 ($150 after March 17 or at the door).
_____ Check here if you want to attend the Competent Person Training (must include an additional $35).
Check here if you would like to receive an exam application. (Applications must be postmarked at least 15 days
prior to the exam.)
Check here if you would like to receive a study guide.
Name
Address
City
Zip
Day Phone
Employer
Please enclose the appropriate fee. Make check payable to Minnesota AWWA. Mail this form and fee to Public Water
Supply Unit, Minnesota Department of Health, 121 East Seventh Place, Suite 220, P. O. Box 64975,
St. Paul, Minnesota 55164-0975.
7
CALENDAR
Water Operator Training
Minnesota Section, American Water Works Association
*April 9-11, Northeast Waterworks
*March 26-28, Southeast Waterworks
Operators School, Best Western Apache, Operators School, Holiday Inn, InternaRochester. Contact Paul Halvorson, tional Falls. Contact Stew Thornley,
651/215-0771.
507/292-5193.
*June 11-13, Central Waterworks
*April 1-3, Metro Waterworks
Operators School, Thunderbird Hotel, Operators School, Brainerd Lakes Area.
Bloomington. Contact Stew Thornley, Contact Bill Spain, 320/654-5952.
651/215-0771.
*April, Southwest Waterworks
Operators School. Contact Mark
Sweers, 507/389-5561.
Minnesota Rural Water Association
Contact Kyle Kedrowski,
1/800/367-6792.
*March 4-6, Technical Conference,
St. Cloud Civic Center.
April 16, Operation & Maintenance,
Elbow Lake
American Water Works Association Teleconference
March 13, Water Storage, Brooklyn Park, St. Paul, Duluth, Bemidji, North
Mankato, and Grand Forks. Contact Stew Thornley, 651/215-0771.
Minnesota Rural Water Association
April 22, Wadena
April 23, Monticello
MRWA Training. for
Non-Municipal Systems
*Schools/meetings marked with an asterisk include a water certification exam. To be eligible to take a certification
exam, applicants must have hands-on operations experience at a drinking water system.
For an up-to-date list of events, check the training calendar on the MDH web site at:
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water/einfo/wat_op_sched.html
MDH Drinking Water Protection web page:
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water
Minnesota Department of Health
121 E. 7th Place Suite 220
P. O. Box 64975
St. Paul, Minnesota 55164-0975
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED