MWH a winning presenter at Singapore International Water Week

MWH Global showcased a winning poster presentation during last week’s Singapore International Water Week (SIWW), which achieved record attendance of nearly 15,000 water professionals and elected officials from 99 countries.

Created by Technical Director of MWH Laboratories Dr Andrew Eaton, the poster, on the set of indicators necessary to determine both the presence of wastewater and potential specific wastewater sources in water supplies, took the top prize in the Water Quality and Health category, ahead of 32 other poster presentations in this category.

Dr Eaton’s research, ‘The List of Lists - determining the best set of indicators to show non-impact of wastewater on water supplies’, explored the challenges of identifying reliable indicators of the presence amount of wastewater in finished drinking water and identifying contaminants of emerging concerns (CEC) in wastewater effluent.

“We developed a method to accurately analyse more than 90 pharmaceuticals, personal care products and pesticides in a cost-effective manner and then measured these in 17 wastewater plants and multiple finished drinking waters. We demonstrated that the compounds detected most frequently are not the most commonly measured,” explained Dr Eaton.

MWH was a founding sponsor of SIWW and a number of MWH representatives also presented research papers and participated in key panel discussions on topics including infrastructure planning for liveable cities, energy minimalisation in seawater desalination and business in India.

MWH Director of Research Dr Joe Jacangelo gave a platform presentation on the quality of recycled water produced by 38 satellite water-recycling facilities across the United States, while MWH wastewater expert Dr Cameron Staib discussed the range of available options to increase biogas production in wastewater facilities, their global track record and lessons learned from their applications.

Another of the company’s wastewater experts, Dr Art Umble, explored our current rate of phosphorus use, which will see worldwide levels depleted within 70 years. Dr Umble discussed how to reduce the demand for phosphates and how to recover phosphorus from municipal wastewaters by highlighting applicable recovery technologies that can also generate revenue for utilities.

In addition, MWH Global hosted over 600 delegates and media attendees at SIWW’s first fully functioning cinema, the MWH Water Dome, which screened a number of films showcasing some of the world’s leading wet infrastructure projects as well as a number of presentations, posters and discussions.