The Water Environment Federation (WEF) announced last week that its Board of Trustees approved the creation of a new Director position for Residuals & Biosolids. This is welcomed news to WEF’s Residuals and Biosolids Committee (RBC) whose members have been advocating for more focus on and resources dedicated to biosolids and residuals concerns. At the December 14th meeting of the RBC Subcommittee called the Association of Biosolids and Byproducts Associations (or ABBA), advocates biosolids advocates for beneficial reuse welcomed the help.

“We need a biosolids champion at WEF! Someone to be proactive, work with utilities and reach beyond the usual stakeholders we’ve been working with to ensure smart policies across the country when it comes to managing biosolids and residuals, especially in this age of PFAS,” said NEBRA Executive Director Janine Burke-Wells. Although NEBRA advocates mainly for beneficial reuse, biosolids managers would agree there is great need to ensure that all three options for wastewater solids management are maintained and supported in practice, in research, and in regulation and legislation.

Following WEF’s Biosolids Convening held in October 2019, the RBC began its campaign for WEF to put more resources into biosolids. The RBC’s annual specialty conference is one of the largest of the WEF conferences. This reflects the fact that biosolids/residuals management represents a significant portion (generally 20% to 50%) of the operations budgets at water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). The solids are also where all the resource recovery potential is with respect to energy and nutrients. Managing the solids, however, is one of the riskiest aspects of any operation. The PFAS issue has underscored the need for an advocate at the WEF Director level.

Howard Carter, Superintendent of the Saco, Maine WRRF told NEBRAMail that “As both a member of the WEF Board of Trustees and a longtime NEBRA member I am thrilled that WEF has decided to once again take a prominent leadership role regarding the proactive advancement of biosolids priorities.” According to Howard, WEF has set a very aggressive goal of getting the job description posted this month, interviewing candidates in January and having the position filled by the end of February.

12/21/20 UPDATE: Job Description for WEF’s Director of Sustainable Biosolids Programs