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With budgets tightening and travel expenses increasing, many industry professionals are left with the difficult task of deciding which industry tradeshows to attend this year. The American Water Works Association’s (AWWA) Annual Conference and Exposition is one tradeshow that produces a large number of exhibitors and attendees each year. The 128th AWWA Annual Conference and Exposition (ACE09) will be held June 14 to 18 in San Diego.
AWWA was founded in 1881 as an advocate of safe water for public health, safety and welfare for the water community. AWWA is an international, nonprofit educational society that consists of more than 60,000 members representing scientists, environmentalists, manufacturers, regulators, academicians and treatment plant operators and managers in the water community.
What to Expect
AWWA’s annual conference improves water quality by presenting developments in technology, processes and products. ACE09 will include more than 500 exhibiting companies and manufacturers of pipes, valves, meters, hydrants, membrane filtration systems, laboratory equipment and engineering services.
Attendees consist of water and wastewater utility management, personnel, board and commission members; manufacturers and distributors of water industry equipment and supplies; researchers, academicians and students; international, federal, state and local water quality regulators and public health administrators; consumer organizations and interest groups; consultants and consulting engineers.
Among this extensive list of attendees will be the Water Quality Association (WQA). The WQA was established in 1973 from a merger of Water Conditioning Association International and the Water Conditioning Foundation. Although WQA as an organization did not exist until 1973, WQA’s laboratory and product validation program has been testing and certifying products since 1959. In 2003, WQA’s laboratory expanded its scope by becoming accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Standards Council of Canada (SCC).
Many state legislative bodies, plumbing codes and individual cities require drinking water products to be certified by an ANSI-accredited certification agency before they can be installed or sold to consumers in the U.S. Additionally, products making health claims have to be registered with California and Iowa, and all products plumbed into the drinking water system have to be registered with Wisconsin and Massachusetts. Provinces in Canada require products be certified by a SCC-accredited certification agency before they can be sold to consumers.
Certification Overview
If you manufacture components, products or materials used in drinking water systems, you can certify your products to NSF/ANSI Standard 61, which establishes minimum health effects requirements for the chemical contaminants that may be indirectly imparted into the drinking water from components, products and materials used in drinking water systems. NSF/ANSI Standard 61 does not establish performance, taste, odor or microbial growth support requirements.
Products covered under this standard include pipes and pipe-related products, protective-barrier materials, joining and sealing materials, process media, mechanical devices and mechanical plumbing devices.
If you manufacture chemicals used in drinking water, you can certify your products to NSF/ANSI Standard 60. This standard establishes minimum health effects requirements for chemicals, the chemical contaminants and the impurities that are directly added to drinking water from drinking water treatment chemicals, and it ensures that chemicals are safe at the maximum dose and that impurities are below the maximum acceptable levels. NSF/ANSI Standard 60 does not establish performance or taste and odor requirements for drinking water treatment chemicals.
If you manufacture drinking water treatment units (DWTUs), you can certify your products for performance claims, materials safety, structural integrity and literature requirements of industry standards. Some examples of DWTUs are drinking water filters, cation exchange water softeners, swimming pool circulation systems, reverse osmosis systems, ultraviolet microbiological water treatment systems, distillation systems, shower filters and ozone generators.
Certification inquiries start the review process for any of the items mentioned above and involve submittal of documentation, performance testing, literature review, facility inspections and issuing of certification.
