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Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Distributed Water Infrastructure: An Interview with Tristian Bounds Pt. 2
In this conversation, Angela and her brother, Tristan Bounds, discuss distributed water infrastructure (DWI) and the focus of WEF's Distributed Water Infrastructure Task Force on improving water management systems. They explore the definitions of distributed infrastructure, the synergistic roles involved in DWI, future focus areas, pathways for innovation, and the next steps for the task force as it integrates with the small systems community.
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Hello and welcome to Make It Clear, a conversational podcast about all things related to water and wastewater. I'm your host, Angela Bounds, and I'm joined by my co-host, Shawn Rapp. In each episode, we'll tackle a relevant topic with facts and expert opinions and make things clear.
Angela: Hello and thanks for joining us again. Or if you're a new listener, welcome. Today we're going to be talking with...
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Tristan Bounds, who happens to be my little brother. I still get to call him my little brother, even though he is taller than me now. He's joining us today. You probably listened to the last podcast that we did around the paper that he wrote with the task force. So he's here today to get a little bit more in depth into that topic. So welcome Tristan.
Tristian: Thanks for having me.
Angela: Yeah.
Tristian: It's nice to sit with you guys again.
Angela: I know.
Shawn: Yeah, you too.
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Angela: And as always, Shawn is here.
Shawn: Yep.
Angela: Shawn will always be here. I will…
Shawn: At least for the foreseeable future. Let's just leave it that way.
Angela: Yep. I will only let him go kicking and screaming.
Shawn: That is true.
Angela: So let's dive in. So Tristan, why don't you go ahead and refresh the listeners, give them a brief overview of what exactly the paper was about and
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why you guys wrote it.
Tristian: Yeah, so years back, WEFTEC, or WEF, Water Environment Federation, recognized that there's a large contingency within their membership and within our industry that was possibly underserved by the information or the groups that were currently established at WEF.
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And that a group that was focused on a different type of or size of project or style of projects called distributed infrastructure was necessary in order to educate the membership or provide information on that topic. And so the group, the Distributed Water Infrastructure Taskforce, was formed
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to do just that. We were basically given open platform to determine what type of information we wanted to accumulate and provide to membership with a specific focus on distributed infrastructure and even with a focus on defining what distributed infrastructure was from our perspective, how it fit into the industry, what types of projects we were talking about.
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And that actually opened up the door for a long discussion with regards to the definitions that are used across the industry and across the world with regards to these different projects, these different style of projects. And that helped us come up with some different definitions that...
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you know, we tried to make clear where our definitions for these things, you know, the task force definition for distributed water infrastructure versus decentralized systems versus you know, what other people may call cluster systems or things like that. And you know, what we define distributed infrastructure as were single property or multi building properties
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that required a outside responsible management entity to maintain and operate these types of water infrastructure systems. And that's just slightly different from, but it also incorporates a lot of those other terms and definitions that are used across the world. So there are overlaps between how we're defining the distributed systems versus
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what a lot of people may consider a decentralize system or a cluster system or, you know, some other terminology that's used in different regions. The main difference is you really aren't seeing a owner necessarily operate the system. Like in a single family home septic system, for example, that wouldn't necessarily fit into the definition simply because we're looking at maybe more technical
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type of applications and processes that require a trained professional to operate them. And there's a lot of these different types of infrastructure in our world, be them small communities that have community systems, water or wastewater, in building on-site systems like what you're seeing pop up in San Francisco and New York and Austin and all these other areas. So recognizing that it's a very broad...
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term of systems that we're trying to talk about here. It became quite complex to figure out how we were going to pile all of this information into a document that could then be shared with the members in order to, you know, expand the knowledge within this space. And you know, I believe that we did a fairly good job at, you know, what the original group at WEF intended for us to do.
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So yeah, that's just how it started and why we did what we did.
Angela: Yeah. So let's dive in a little bit. On page 11 of the paper, The task force writes about the synergistic roles. Can you get into that a little bit? Talk a little bit about each of the roles and how they play a part in DWI.
Tristian: Yeah. You know,
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we found it was critical for us to try and express it in a way that people could relate to because there's a variety of different members coming from different areas of the industry. And so the terms and definitions that we used for the people that would touch these projects, we call those synergistic roles. And we use synergistic roles because
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we're all working in concert in order to see these projects happen. And those roles included what we called controllers. We didn't want to use the term regulator specifically, because there are other entities outside of regulators that are really in control of defining regulations and defining these processes. And those include
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government regulators, legislators, and different enforcement agencies. So we lumped those into a role that was called the controller because they're kind of in control of defining the prescriptive ways that we implement these things. The other groups included implementers. The implementers are groups like the professionals that design or operate the systems.
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manufacturers and suppliers, possibly financing organizations as well. So, those are the different roles in which the process actually gets implemented into something, implementing a design, implementing construction, implementing operation and maintenance, and implementing the financing elements. Another synergistic role that we defined was the owner of those particular projects.
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The owners may be governmental, quasi-governmental or nonprofits, or they could be utilities, or they could be private owners. So there's a variety of different individuals that will end up owning those products, those systems. And it could be, let's say, in San Francisco, an on-site water reuse system at a building in San Francisco would actually end up being owned by the building owner.
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But that owner does not necessarily design it or install it or regulate it or use it at the end of the day. And so there was a fourth rule that we identified, which was the beneficiary. And that is the individuals that end up actually having access to the product of that process. So the water users or, you know, the community that lives around the system that
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benefits from the treatment process that's keeping their environment clean. Those are the beneficiaries, the peoples, the community, and the businesses. And we attempted to try and fit everybody that we could into those four synergistic roles and really show how they impact each other. How the regulatory or the controller role ends up impacting the owners and impacting the beneficiaries and impacting the implementers,
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and all the way around and we ended up putting a nice illustration together that was circular on purpose because we all synergistically work together to find systems that work and that are safe and that provide a product to a beneficiary and that an owner can implement and provide that service to that beneficiary as well.
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Again, synergistic roles and those are the four, the controller, the implementer, the owner and the beneficiary.
Shawn: Yeah, each is an integral part of the whole, so.
Angela: Right.
Tristian: That's right.
Angela: So, do you see, so, each of them is important and they're all interrelated, but does one stand out as being more of a focus area as we move forward?
Tristian: You know, there are definitely...
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synergistic roles that are going to allow for greater acceptance and allow for easier access to. And additionally… So for example, if we wanted to break down each one of the roles, potential future focus or what's going to, how they're going to contribute to the expansion of distributed water infrastructure
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throughout the world, you know, the regulatory bodies are going to be implementing new regulations and identifying new technologies and new ways to reuse water. And they're going to be creating regulation or platforms that are prescriptive in nature so that they can be regulated and so that they can be validated and so that you can have...
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safety associated with them, right? Those regulations are associated with creating safety in our communities. Implementers will have a role in the acceptance of these new technologies and the acceptance of the way that these systems are designed through our communities, be it in municipal applications where municipal implementers, engineers or contractors or operators are going to have to
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understand and be accepting of the integration of some of these different technologies and different approaches into the traditional platforms that we currently use within our communities. Beneficiaries are going to obviously have an impact and a voice in their equitable access to these services.
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In expressing the way in which they're impacted by these different types of systems that are now being implemented into our communities. And there's going to be impact to the owners and the acceptance and the way that owners move forward with regards to financing are most likely going to be different than the traditional methods that have been used. So all of these things are again...
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intertwined with each other because if one of those synergistic roles doesn't participate in those elements, it is like putting a cog in the wheel to slowing down the process of acceptance and the process of creating these systems and protecting our environments and creating alternatives for people. So yeah.
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Angela: Alright, so in the section entitled Pathways for Innovation and Improvement, what are some pathways forward in greater adaptation of these technologies?
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Tristian: Yeah, we just kind of touched on that a little bit, right? I mean, the pathways from a regulatory perspective not only involve those controllers, but involve the other synergistic roles as well. All of those roles need to participate in the identification of areas where our regulations could be more widely adopting these technologies and these approaches.
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So, you know, there are lots of areas in which these regulations are currently adopted and are being very progressive with regards to how they're adjusting their regulations around these types of technologies. And they're very accepting of the benefits and looking into the future with regards to how we can
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create a regulatory environment that allows for the adoption of different approaches to solving problems, right? So from the regulatory perspective, there is a lot that can be done by implementers to participate in drafting regulations, to participate in drafting legislation and really...
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you know, sitting in regulatory rewrite meetings and, you know, just trying to do the best that we can as an industry, whether you are an implementer or an owner or a beneficiary or a controller to, you know, be engaged and active in the process. Additionally, there's quite a few different financing alternatives or delivery methods that are...
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popping their heads up as viable alternatives for these types of projects. Whether it's public-private finance where there's a public-private partnership or private finance is really getting some steam these days as well as an alternative for these projects. A lot of these projects do end up already fitting into a private finance
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arena because they're owned by a private company. The ownership is private. But even in those public applications, there are new private finance alternatives available. And having more alternatives available for the delivery of a project is critical. Design build is another pathway for delivery outside of the financing elements. The design build, delivery method
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is becoming more popular and more of an alternative. And there's many, many more alternatives from the financing and delivery that are available that I'm not mentioning, but just to name a few. Those are some of the, I think, most obvious and some of the things that are currently already in process of becoming more common in distributed water infrastructure. The
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involvement in regulation and really trying to push the needle with regards to allowing for alternatives like distributed water within different regulatory environments, the financing side and the project delivery side. Those are all already getting some steam. And I think that we're just going to continue to see all of those different elements widen and expand across at least our country and across different parts of the world.
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Angela: Right. So what's next for the task force?
Tristian: Yeah, there's been quite a bit happening in the last few months. I think it was, was it November that we did our last, last chat?
Angela: December, I think.
Tristian: December?
Angela: Yeah.
Tristian: Since then, the Distributed Water Infrastructure Task Force has partnered with the Small Systems Community at WEF. So we've...
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We decided that we would, task force are typically given a two year window to complete their goals and then they can either be extended to another two years to continue that same work or they can be wrapped into an existing community within WEF. And we decided to, with all the overlapping work and ideologies with the small systems community that it was a
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really, really good fit for the task force to join arms with a small systems community to expand that community's work. And so the task force is going to actually be operating as a work group now under the small systems community. So we will be the distributed water infrastructure work group, which will, you know, be a component of the small systems community. And we’ll be continuing down the road of
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creating documentation and education materials with regards to distributed water infrastructure. We will continue to reach out to other groups within the WEF community. We're already working on some things with the water reuse community to expand the distributed water infrastructure voice within that group and those members. And yeah, we're working on publications and you know, aren't...
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haven't really identified exactly what our next big task items are, you know, what's the next big deliverable.
Angela: Right.
Tristian: Again, the workforce, the work that's been done recently is been more focused on how do we work into the small systems community and, you know, shift and get our membership moved over to the small systems community. And then, you know, once the work group gets fully formed, we'll be identifying new chairs and vice chairs and new leadership with that
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workforce, work group. Once that happens, then, you know, we'll start talking about, okay, what's the next, what's the next big ticket item that we want to tackle, whether it's trying to develop a workshop for WEFTEC next year, or develop an operation manual of practice, or, you know, these things have been talked about, but nothing's been, nothing's been set in stone yet. So it's pretty exciting that we're moving into the small systems community. We're all really
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really pumped about that. And you know, once the work group gets solidified a little bit more, we'll start talking about where exactly we go from here.
Shawn: That's great.
Angela: Yeah, that's great. Fantastic. All right. Is there anything else that you want the listeners to know about?
Tristian: If you're interested, becoming a WEF member is something that I feel like all of us in this industry will find value in. And if you've listened to this,
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then you are probably interested in small systems and distributed water infrastructure. And so joining the small systems community, participating in the work group, we're looking for more brains and more ideas. And the more people that we can get engaged in the work that we're doing at WEF, the better the product's going to be and the more movements and the more progress we’ll have in
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expanding the work that we can do in distributed water infrastructure around the country and the world. So join, get engaged, be involved. And yeah, that would that would be my pitch.
Angela: Are you going to continue your work on the DWI board or workforce now?
Tristian: Yes, I will. I will. I will most likely not be in a leadership role. I will continue to be
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a participant and be engaged in whatever is happening within the small systems community and the work group. But no, we're looking for fresh leadership. You know, it's always good to get leadership in that has fresh eyes and fresh energy.
Angela: And so it should be said that you're not stepping away from WEF completely, even though you won't be in a leadership role in that work group. You are still heavily involved in WEF.
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Tristian: I will still be involved in WEF. Yes, absolutely.
Shawn: Still have a voice.
Angela: Yes.
Shawn: That's awesome.
Angela: This is what happens when your sister is the host.
Tristian: Yeah.
Angela: All right, Tristan. Well, thank you so much for joining us and talking with us again. I think the work that you guys have done is really important. And I can't wait to see what comes out of the task force and work groups in the coming years. Because I think that the conversations and
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what you guys are doing is extremely important to move the industry forward.
Shawn: Yeah. Yep.
Tristian: Well, thanks for your time. This is always fun.
Angela: Yeah. Thank you. And thank you guys for listening.
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Until next time, have a great day!
