October 21, 2020

Wednesday October 21, 2020

Water Operator Continuing Education
On-line via ZOOM
9:00 am - 10:00 am

AGENDA

Current Events - Derek Chambers

Recent Disaster Declarations in Texas

Four hurricanes have struck the Texas coast immediately prior to or during Derek's stay in Texas this Fall. These hurricanes did some damage to water and wastewater systems.
In addition the COVID-19 pandemic is active enough in Texas to warrant a disaster declaration.
September 8, 2020 a 6 year old boy died from an amoeba (naegleria fowleri) which was eventually detected in the city of Lake Jackson, TX public water system. A disaster was declared for the Brazosport Water Authority area while officials attempted to disinfect the water system. A Houston Public Media audio story explained the situation: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2020/09/30/382959/after-amoeba-caused-death-officials-work-to-ensure-water-safety-in-lake-jackson
During the presentation I attempted to show a website from the City of Lake Jackson show a map of chlorine residual sampling sites and their results. The website did not show on the Zoom presentation (I have since figuread out how to correct that). If you want to see that website, here is a link: https://tceq.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/48bba672798c4e48b2024f65e7df4a82
Some facts about naegleria fowleri and incidents in the U.S. since 1962 were presented.

screen shot of Lake Jackson chlorine residual monitoring map

Detecting COVID-19 in Wastewater
We saw 3 YouTube videos about COVID-19 in wastewater.

The first video was a 5 minute clip from a 1 hour webinar. In this clip the company Biobot explained how they have used wastewater samples to collect public health data (including opioid usage) on select areas of a community. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Tlj-MNdG4
The second video was from CBS News and explained how in September 2020 the University of Arizona detected COVID-19 in wastewater from a particular dorm, and then test all residents and isolate the 2 individuals that were asymptomatic before an outbreak occurred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf5Gx4vQxNg
The third video was a 5 minute clip from a 1 hour WEF webinar and explained that although the COVID-19 virus can be detected in wastewater, the virus fragments in wastewater are not infectious and wastewater utility workers are not at an increased risk of becoming infected with the virus due to the wastewater. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR4254NHoSU

On-Line Continuing Education Opportunities
The Mariana Islands Water Operator Association has not been able to conduct an in-person training event since February 2020, just before the pandemic. Some water or wastewater operators may need to find continuing education classes to be able to meet their recertification requirements. The Association has compiled a list of free and paid on-line continuing education resources. Derek reviewed some of these sites. You can find the webpage by clicking on the "ONLINE CEU OPTIONS" link in the main menu or clicking here.

Instructors' Bios

Derek Chambers

Presentations

Click on the links below to download pdfs of the Power Point Presentations from this class:

Questions/comments typed into the chat box during this class:

Geoffrey Cabrera to Training MIWOA(Privately) : May I suggest, when sharing your screen, going from one slide to the next takes a few seconds to show up some times. Maybe slowing down when going to next slide may help. Thanks Geoff. Comments like this are VERY helpful since I cannot see what you all are seeing on the screen. Like when the website that I opened on my computer did not show on the Zoom meeting. I have since figured out why that happened. Please continue to make comments and suggestions for improvements during the presentations.

Randy Blackcloud : Derek Randy Blackcloud here. AS we discussed before, I'd like to explore the possibility of establishing a proctor on site so we might have the flexibility of viewing recorded training at individual convenience. thanks for your consideration. -RAndy Great idea Randy. The Zoom presentation was recorded. It is an hour long and the file is a 368 MB mp4 file. That is currently too long/large for me to post on YouTube. I'll work on some way to save this on-line and we can work with BECQ on ways to make these files acceptable for CEU credit.

Travis Spaeth : Aren't you a little to late if its already in the wastewater. [referring to the presentations on testing wastewater for COVID-19 virus]. Good question, maybe Travis asked this before Dr. Ian Pepper mentioned in his interview that COVID-19 virus fragments show up in stool up to 7 days before someone is infectious, so testing wastewater, especially at a neighborhood/building level as was done on the University of Arizona campus, can be effective at detecting the virus before a major outbreak.

RUEL MAGTALAS : How long will Covid thrive outside a host (human or animal)? In this case the wastewater. From what I saw in the videos, no one knows for sure yet about COVID, but past experience with SARS was that the virus could be still infectious for several days outside the human body. But the information from CDC said that live COVID-19 virus has not yet been detected in wastewater. Only the RNA fragments.

Roginia Banacia : these webinars are free right? no charge? That is correct Roginia, this year the webinars from the Mariana Islands Water Operator Association are free. In the future there may be a small fee ($5?) when we figure out how to collect your money virtually.

Roginia Banacia : for the ceu's do we need to have the physical certificate or just a confirmation that we have attended? some would charge a fee for the certs.. That is right Roginia, some would charge a fee (U of Guam for example) but we are here to serve you. A link to your certificate will be posted below.

Geoffrey Melchor : Lots of free courses on-line at AEC Daily - Free Continuing Education. [aecdaily.com] Thanks Geoff. I checked out this website and Geoff is correct. There are a lot of free continuing education courses. The focus of these courses is the architectural and construction industry but you may find something relevant. I will add this site to the free CEU section of this website ONLINE CEU OPTIONS

Attendance and Certificates

The following is a list of attendees for this training. Those on this list can apply for 1 hour of continuing education credit to be applied to their water or waste water operator certification renewal: