Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Funding Innovative Solutions: An Interview with Dr. Reshmina William
In this conversation, Dr. Reshmina William of ISLE Utilities discusses the Trial Reservoir Program, a unique initiative designed to de-risk piloting and trials for water and wastewater innovation technologies. The program supports vendors and end users by providing a revolving loan fund that absorbs the costs of unsuccessful trials. Dr. William highlights the global impact of the program, including specific reservoirs for minority-led utilities and disadvantaged communities. She emphasizes the need for innovative technologies, particularly in lead detection and PFAS management, and the importance of procedural justice in technology implementation. The conversation concludes with a call to action for technology vendors and utility end users to engage with the program.
To learn more about ISLE Utilities and the programs they offer, visit https://isleutilities.com.
To contact Dr. William directly, email reshmina.william@isleutilities.com.
If you have comments or questions about our podcast, you can reach us through this link. To discuss a project or talk to one of our engineers, call 800-348-9843.
Angela (00:01.527)
Hello and thanks for joining us again. Today, we are fortunate enough to have Dr. Reshmina William with us again. If you listen to any of our podcasts from WEFTEC, she spoke with us a little bit about trends in the industry, what she sees, where things are heading. And so we've invited her in to come and talk to us a little bit more in depth about some of the projects that she's working on and the future. So Reshmina,
Dr. Reshmina. Thanks for being here.
Reshmina (00:35.141)
Thanks, Angela. Happy to be here again.
Angela (00:37.355)
Yeah, as always, Shawn is here with me to keep us in line and make sure that…
Shawn (00:41.374)
Yeah, that's more than half my job, I think. No, I'm just teasing. All right.
Angela (00:44.312)
Make sure we stay on task and all of those things. all right, well let's kick it off. So, when we were in New Orleans, you talked to us a little bit about the Trial Reservoir Program. can you tell us a little bit more about how that program works?
Reshmina (01:05.265)
Sure. So in a nutshell, the Trial Reservoir is a non-profit revolving loan fund that's specifically designed to de-risk piloting and trials for both vendors and end users around the world who are working in the water innovation space. What makes us pretty unique is that once we work together with the vendors and the end user communities to define success metrics for the trial, so objective criteria that will say, the trial has been successfully completed,
If the trial is completed, the end user signs an agreement upfront to procure the technology so that the vendors aren't stuck in that so-called piloting valley of death where they're piloting over and over and over and not making a sale. But on the other hand, if the trial is not successful, the vendors, who are the ones who are borrowing from the fund, don't have to pay us back. So the Trial Reservoir will eat the cost of any failed project. So it's a pretty win-win situation for
Reshmina (02:05.189)
the vendor because they have basically a, not a free trial, but a very low risk trial that they could do for a potentially very happy end user, the end user who gets the potential to try out some new technologies and for the Trial Reservoir because we get to see new and innovative technologies being tested in spaces that they wouldn't otherwise be trialed.
Shawn (02:26.507)
That's wonderful.
Angela (02:27.254)
Fantastic. So it's an international program?
Reshmina (02:31.129)
Yes, so we have five different reservoir pots. Some of them are geographic agnostics. So our most famous Trial Reservoir Program, the one that's been going since 2021, is our climate change mitigation reservoir. So that's specifically for technologies that help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from either scope one, scope two, or scope three emissions from the water sector. That is global. And we have technologies that have been implemented all over the world, from sub-Saharan Africa to Fiji
Reshmina (03:01.041)
and Samoa and beyond. We've got a couple in Europe right now that I'm really excited about. We do have some that are geographically locked, however. We have one that's specifically for Brazilian utilities, our Brazil Trail Reservoir, and our newest reservoir, which is our minority-led US utilities reservoir, which is specifically for minority-led utilities here in the United States.
Angela (03:24.215)
Interesting. Is there anything, anything specific right now that you're focusing on looking for that you really want to fund right now?
Reshmina (03:37.433)
in terms of technologies or in terms of end users?
Angela (03:40.686)
Either one.
Reshmina (03:42.353)
In terms of end users, like I said, our newest trial reservoir is the minority led utilities reservoir. Again, that's specifically for utilities that are minority owned. In other words, 61 % of, or minority led, I should say, 61 % of the leadership is minority. Or it could be for disadvantaged communities here in the United States. So if you're a utility provider or a small disadvantaged community in a rural system, you can...
Reshmina (04:10.651)
pull from this fund specifically to fund projects. And so we're actively looking for projects that would fit under that reservoir to kind of kick off the program, get it launched and started. In terms of technologies that I'm really looking to see, I would love to see more lead detection technologies, more PFAS technologies. I'm located out of the United States. My home base is Washington, DC.
Angela (04:31.356)
Mm-hmm.
Reshmina (04:35.673)
And so I've seen a lot of those regulatory drivers around the new EPA regulations for PFAS and the updated lead and copper rule, which has the replacement requirement for lead and service lines by, what is it, 2035. That's coming up a lot faster than I think people realized. So suddenly we've got all of our big city clients going, gosh, we need to find where our lead lines are.
Angela (04:48.38)
Mm-hmm. Right. It always does. It always does.
Shawn (04:53.108)
Right.
Angela (05:01.37)
Yeah. So you've talked a little bit about serving disadvantaged communities. Can you tell us what that looks like?
Reshmina (05:10.747)
Sure. So it could look like anything from working with a rural community to implement a pilot program for a decentralized sanitation solution if they can't afford to implement a larger solution. But maybe they're looking for a pilot program for a non-septic system based decentralized treatment solution for their community that can be expanded on later. That's one option.
Reshmina (05:36.641)
It could look like working within the confines of a larger utility, so somewhere like Detroit or Chicago, working with some of those communities on the south side of Chicago, for example, for rain garden implementation. It could even look like working with communities in Hawaii, so like folks who are very isolated from a lot of the more centralized treatment systems.
Angela (05:59.591)
Mm-Hmm
Reshmina (06:02.961)
So it really depends on the community. really depends on the need. We're very flexible as to the types of technologies. It's really anything that a utility or a disadvantaged end user might require. Another good example is we might potentially have a partnership with Louisville to help trial some odor sensing technologies for the city. So that's an example of working with a much bigger city utility to put in a program.
Shawn (06:31.61)
That's exciting.
Angela (06:31.934)
So what is the utilization rate?
Reshmina (06:35.915)
could you clarify that question?
Angela (06:39.295)
So it's a fund that will help… So I assume that the fund has a cap, right? So what percentage of that fund is currently being utilized? Or is it a hundred?
Reshmina (06:45.329)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Reshmina (06:51.665)
That's actually kind of a difficult question to answer, honestly, because this is a rolling fund. So we don't have a set timeline for implementation or when we take applications for projects and we don't say you have to finish your project by X date. It's very much an agreement that's set between the end user and the vendor to see how long the trial should run to actually prove
Reshmina (07:19.313)
that it does what it says what it's gonna do on the box, right? So you've had trials run anywhere from like a month or two to like a year. It really depends on the technology of what you're trying to test because we're mostly completely technology agnostic. So I'm sorry I can't give you a straightforward answer to that.
Angela (07:34.676)
Mm-hmm.
No, no, that's a great answer. Yeah. Great.
You talked about some of the projects that you guys are currently working on, which sounds fascinating. What do you think still needs to be done? So you talked a little bit about PFAS, like you've been doing this work for a little bit. I can feel your passion, right? This is what you're passionate about. So do you want to expand a little bit on what needs to be done?
Reshmina (08:12.707)
Right. So again, this is very user based and particularly for the minority led utilities reservoir, we want to be cognizant that it is user driven. We don't want to be coming in and saying this is the technology that you should be implementing. This is where you should focus on because we want to ensure that we have procedural justice as well as distributive justice. And what I mean by that is making sure that everyone
who is a stakeholder in these projects as a seat at the table. That being said, from past experience working with larger utilities with disadvantaged communities, particularly in the Midwest, which is where I spent a lot of my time before coming down to DC, I would love to see more technologies for lead sensing. I would love to see more technologies for helping people figure out where.
Angela (08:58.753)
Right.
Reshmina (09:02.811)
their lead lines are, like I said, figuring out where those pipes are is the first step in that puzzle. It's really difficult to do right now if you don't dig up the pipe. But also more technologies that allow communities to kind of take back their systems. So data transparency, de-siloing of data so that people can share their data more openly and people can understand where…
Reshmina (09:28.941)
where there might be challenges in their system and how they could advocate for themselves.
Angela (09:34.018)
Fantastic.
Shawn (09:35.069)
I know in New Orleans, we heard an awful lot about PFAS. And yesterday there was actually a webinar kind of presentation from WEF on what's being done currently in PFAS and how PFAS is affecting wastewater and the water stream in general. But are you guys seeing more technologies come along that are specifically targeted at PFAS?
Angela (09:38.902)
Yeah.
Reshmina (09:39.419)
yes, yes.
Reshmina (10:00.005)
We are, there's actually been a glut of new technologies, especially since the new EPA regulations have just come out for the Safe Drinking Water Act. I'll be curious to see how many of those technologies actually get implemented just because of like cost constraints or technological constraints, because a lot of them need to be added onto existing systems. They might not necessarily always talk to each other, but I am very excited to see the new developments in that field as well.
Shawn (10:28.384)
Yeah, and I know that they were focusing a lot yesterday in that seminar about microfiltration and reverse osmosis as two of the leading ways to address PFAS. But I know those are also… can be expensive to implement as well on the back end. So I'm just kind of curious to kind of watch and see what you guys are able to come up with as far as like helping people with maybe smaller ideas that are just as effective. It's going to be interesting to watch.
Reshmina (10:36.443)
Mm-hmm.
Angela (10:44.516)
Mm-hmm.
Reshmina (10:48.635)
Yeah.
Reshmina (10:56.177)
Absolutely. And I think one really important caveat here is the two technologies you mentioned are PFAS removal technologies. They're not PFAS destruction technologies. And I think as we start seeing potentially more restrictions on landfill for PFAS, what is that going to do for the ratio of removal versus destruction technologies? I have no idea. I don't have a crystal ball in front of me, but I'll be curious to see what happens in that space.
Shawn (11:03.454)
Right.
Angela (11:06.212)
Right.
Angela (11:13.625)
What does that look like?
Shawn (11:17.268)
Yeah.
Angela (11:23.983)
Yeah, I think a lot of us will be curious to see what happens in that space. People are watching it all over, waiting. All right, well, is there anything else that you want to share with us before we let you go?
Reshmina (11:38.193)
Just that if you're a technology vendor or if you're a utility end user that might be interested in trialing a technology but you have that initial monetary hurdle and you think that something like Travel Reservoir might be helpful for your program, please feel free to reach out to me. I know that Angela and Shawn are gonna be sharing my contact information on LinkedIn probably. I'm also...
Happy to share my email in case you guys want to get in touch with me directly. We're always looking for more people in the pub. Yes, there is. If you go to Isle Utilities website and you click on flagship programs, the trial reservoir is one of the first ones that'll pop up, but I'll also send you the website.
Angela (12:08.845)
Is there a website also? there?
Shawn (12:19.914)
Wonderful.
Angela (12:21.445)
Isle, I S L E correct?
Reshmina (12:23.745)
I S L E utilities.
Angela (12:25.814)
utilities.com and you can find them there. Or we will be tagging and sharing her email address… with the world. All right. Well, we thank you so much for joining us. We learn something every time we talk. so we appreciate your time and your efforts in this space. and as always, we thank all of you for listening.
Reshmina (12:30.416)
Yes.
Reshmina (12:35.931)
Wonderful.
Shawn (12:37.879)
Right.
