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WEF's membership newsletter covers current Federation activities, Member Association news, and items of concern to the water quality field. WEF Highlights is your source for the most up-to-the-minute WEF news and member information.
October
2010, Vol.
47, No.
8
Top Story
Plant Proves All-Star Stormwater Best Management Practices — Award After Award
Green roof and vegetative features reduce runoff by 70% at one Connecticut water purification facility
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| The South Central green roof as it begins to grow. Photo courtesy of Bioengineering Group. Click for larger image. |
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Over the years, the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority’s Water Purification Facility and Park (South Central) serving New Haven, Conn., acquired an impressive list of awards recognizing its sustainable design, most recently receiving an American Society of Landscape Architects (Washington, D.C.) 2010 General Design Honor Award. The facility also received the 2007 American Institute of Architects (Washington, D.C.) Top Ten Green Award, 2007 Sustainable Land Development Visionary Project Award, and architecture awards in 2005 from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and 2001 from the Van Alen Institute (New York).
Soccer Field Set To Filter Rainwater in Africa
Citizens of South Africa soon could be thanking a soccer field for their water. Atopia Research Inc. (Princeton, N.J.) designed PITCH: AFRICA, an innovative rainwater harvesting and filtration system built into a soccer playing surface, also known as a football pitch.
In 2008, the Annenberg Foundation (Los Angeles) began supporting research and development of the system. This summer, the foundation announced plans to work with the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (Los Angeles) and identify a location in South Africa to build the first system by the end of next summer, said Liza deVilla Ameen, Annenberg Foundation communications officer. The foundation built and unveiled a life-size model of the system in July at the Port of Los Angeles to illustrate the system and garner support for the project, Ameen said. |  |
| Children play soccer on the PITCH:AFRICA model that captures and stores rainwater. Photo courtesy of the Annenberg Foundation (Los Angeles). Click for larger image. |
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2010 SJWP Recognizes Novel Research
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| Danny Luong and Alexandre Allard receive the SJWP 2010 award from Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden (center). Photo courtesy of Exray Foto, SIWI. Click for larger image. |
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Each September, Stockholm, Sweden, draws the brightest young researchers, who are taking on some of the toughest water challenges, from around the world to participate in the Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP) competition.
Students from more than 30 countries participated in this year’s international SJWP competition, the world’s most prestigious youth award for water-related science, held during World Water Week. Every year, World Water Week addresses a theme to encourage examination of a specific water-related topic; this year’s theme was “the water quality challenge.”
Barry Liner Joins WEF as Water Science and Engineering Center Director
The Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Va.) welcomes Barry Liner as director of the new Water Science and Engineering Center. The center, part of WEF’s Technical and Educational Programs group, will work to ensure comprehensive coverage of technical issues and prompt development of cohesive programs in emerging areas, such as energy, climate change, and stormwater.
CWEA Vice President Becomes NASSCO Executive Director
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| Photo courtesy of Ted DeBoda. |
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The National Association of Sewer Service Companies (NASSCO; Owings Mills, Md.) board of directors selected Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Va.) member Ted DeBoda as the organization’s executive director. DeBoda, a WEF member since 1991 and current vice president of the Chesapeake Water Environment Association (CWEA; Sparks, Md.), began his term as NASSCO executive director in August.
DeBoda’s 20 years of leadership experience includes his most recent experience as manager of the Baltimore office of URS Corp. (San Francisco), senior project manager for URS, officer in the U.S. Army National Guard, and 15 years with the New Castle County (Del.) Department of Public Works and Special Services in both the engineering and operations divisions.