Over 300 water professionals, including engineers, consultants, municipal employees, equipment manufacturers and contractors, attended Urban Water Management 2008, a new integrated water quality conference addressing the management and control of stormwater and natural waters in urban areas. The event debuted in Louisville, KY, March 31-April 2.
Derek Guthrie, chief engineer for the Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer district, the sponsoring utility for Urban Water Management, opened the conference with a welcome address in which he gave an overview of the current urban water management efforts underway in the city.
Tom Schueler, founder of the Center for Watershed Protection and currently the founder and director of the Chesapeake Stormwater Network, delivered the keynote address titled “From rooftop to stream to rooftop.” Of the event, Schueler remarked, “It was a nice crowd. I was glad to be a part of it.”
The event featured a comprehensive conference agenda focusing on topics such as stormwater best management practices (BMPs), stormwater treatment, hydraulic modeling, low impact development, and watershed management. Attendees commented on quality of the presentations and overall organization of the conference program.
“I found the conference to be one of the best I’ve attended,” said Pam Hammonds, Corporate Stormwater Engineer for Jensen Precast (Reno Sparks, NV).
“We gained a lot of information that is pertinent to our upcoming stormwater management projects and look forward to attending next year,” said Max Sestili, an engineer with the City of Hot Springs, AR.
Steve Veal, a principal with Jacobs Carter Burgess and member of the Urban Water Management steering committee, said, “Pennwell conducted an excellent event that was very crisply managed and had outstanding speakers. I’ve been in this business for 30 years, yet I learned a lot to help me and my clients.”
Between conference sessions, attendees had the opportunity to walk the exhibit floor and meet with vendors. Urban Water Management 2008 featured over 30 exhibits from some of the best-known companies in the stormwater management industry, including BaySaver, Brentwood Industries, CrystalStream Technologies, GE Water & Process Technologies, Hydro International, and many more.
Sponsors of Urban Water Management 2008 included Contech, Hach/Marsh McBirney, One Rain, Johnson Screens, HDR, Myron L, and StormTrap.
The inaugural Urban Water event also provided the setting for the first organizational meeting of the MWQPA (Manufactured Water Quality Products Association), an association of companies that manufacture products for the stormwater quality industry. Association organizer John Moll, CEO of CrystalStream Technologies (Lawrenceville, GA), convened the seven existing founding members along with eight other companies invited to help found the association to discuss finalizing the group of founders, discuss changes in the organizational documents, and to set a date for the initial meeting of the Executive Committee. That committee will meet this summer to adopt the organizational documents and issue invitations to a large group of charter members.
“The charter group will not be limited to manufacturers and will be widely inclusive of all entities involved in stormwater quality,” said Moll. “Going forward, the association plans to proactively support the use of manufactured products, and to assist regulators, designers, contractors and end-users in the proper application of association products and services, and to promote improved water quality here and abroad,” he said.
Planning is already underway for Urban Water Management 2009, which is scheduled to take place March 23-26 in Overland Park, Kansas. For more information, visit the event website at www.urbanwatermgt.com. For exhibit information, please contact exhibit sales manager Katherine Casey at [email protected].
