Smart wastewater management uses research and data to justify treatment upgrades, ensuring utilities spend ratepayer money only where it produces measurable ecosystem benefit.

Leland Myers is the Executive Director of the Wasatch Front Water Quality Council, a collaborative research organization focused on protecting Utah Lake, the Jordan River, and the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. With more than 35 years of experience — including leadership of the Central Davis Sewer District and guidance on more than $2.5 billion in treatment plant upgrades — he has helped reduce nutrient pollution and shaped Utah’s cost-effective wastewater standards, ecosystem management strategies, and sewer collection rules. Leland’s work has earned national recognition, including an EPA award for outstanding wastewater operations.

Here’s a Glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:37] Leland Myers reflects on forming the Wasatch Front Water Quality Council to study wastewater, nutrients, and ecosystem impacts
• [7:58] Why changing wastewater regulations and ratepayer costs pushed utilities toward proactive research
• [10:46] How Leland helped shape a stepwise, affordable approach to nutrient standards in Utah
• [15:38] What science-based decision-making means for avoiding unnecessary treatment upgrades
• [22:53] Central Davis Sewer District’s turnaround from EPA scrutiny to award-winning operations
• [35:39] Leland’s mentor’s advice: “knowledge is not static” and the need to keep learning as new pollutants, rules, and infrastructure challenges emerge

In this Episode…

Leland Myers explains how research-backed data helps utilities justify wastewater upgrades, balancing nutrient regulations, ratepayer costs, and real ecosystem benefits.

Wastewater systems are often judged by what comes out of the pipe, but the smartest decisions begin much earlier. Utilities weigh regulations, ratepayer costs, infrastructure conditions, and ecosystem outcomes before committing to major upgrades. How can wastewater leaders make progress without spending more than the science can justify?

The answer is using research and data to guide practical, adaptive decisions. Leland Myers brings decades of wastewater leadership and ecosystem research experience, and he explains why utilities should understand nutrient sources, treatment impacts, and watershed conditions before accepting new requirements or investing in costly upgrades. Rather than chasing the lowest possible pollutant levels, Leland emphasizes aligning improvements with measurable ecosystem benefits, maintaining public trust through cost-conscious planning, and using collection system data to guide maintenance frequency, capacity planning, and inflow and infiltration strategies. The result is a more disciplined approach to compliance, infrastructure renewal, and long-term environmental stewardship.

In this episode of Saving Our Sewers, Eric Petersen sits down with Leland Myers, Executive Director at Wasatch Front Water Quality Council, to discuss how science-based wastewater research can shape smarter sewer management. Leland shares why nutrient rules need ecological justification, how data support affordable upgrades, and what collection systems need to do to stay ahead of failure. He also touches on PFAS, regulatory oversight, and lifelong learning.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Eric Petersen on LinkedIn 
• Jon Borden on LinkedIn
• Kwin Peterson on LinkedIn
• RH Borden
• Leland Myers on LinkedIn 
• Wasatch Front Water Quality Council
• Central Davis Sewer District
• Utah Division of Water Quality
• Utah Water Quality Board
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• ASCE Infrastructure Report Card
• Utah Lake Authority
• Jordan River Commission
• Great Salt Lake
• Provo Wastewater System and Programs
• Salt Lake City Water Reclamation Facility

Quotable Moments: 

• “At the end of the day, money is an important factor.”
• “We said, how do we make progress and still not break the bank?”
• “So we have brought research-oriented science into the equation to make these decisions.”
• “Knowledge is not static knowledge.”
• “And you need to adapt your knowledge to meet what those changes demand.”

Action Steps: 

1. Invest in ecosystem research before making major upgrades: Understanding how wastewater impacts the environment helps utilities make smarter, science-based decisions.
2. Use data to justify infrastructure spending: Clear evidence ensures ratepayer dollars are spent on improvements that create real environmental benefits.
3. Plan for changing regulations and emerging pollutants: Staying ahead of new requirements helps systems avoid costly surprises and remain compliant.
4. Maintain accurate collection system records: Good data helps teams identify risks, plan maintenance, and prevent system failures.
5. Keep learning as conditions evolve: Continuous learning helps wastewater leaders adapt to new technologies, pollutants, and regulatory demands.

Sponsor for this Episode…

This episode is brought to you by RH Borden, the leading service provider for innovative technologies that modernize wastewater collection system maintenance.

As Smart Cities evolve, RH Borden empowers communities to leverage data, optimize maintenance resources, and improve system performance. Their digital twin solutions help teams work more efficiently, minimize redundant maintenance, and pinpoint infrastructure issues with precision.

Learn more about how RH Borden is shaping the future of wastewater system management by visiting rhborden.com.

Powered by Rise25 Podcast Production Company

Frequently Asked Questions:

How do we avoid spending more on infrastructure than we can actually justify?

Let measured data drive the decision, not assumptions. The episode with Leland Myers makes the case that evidence, not habit, should justify every infrastructure dollar so ratepayers fund only improvements that deliver real results. On the collection side, RH Borden shows you exactly where I&I, blockages, and manhole degradation are, so you invest in the work that matters instead of blanket upgrades or oversized capacity you may not need.

Our state’s Sanitary Sewer Management Plan requires us to justify maintenance frequency and keep records. How does data help with that?

Good condition data is what makes that justification defensible. SSMP-style rules ask you to show why you clean and inspect at a given frequency and to keep records of your system’s condition over time. RH Borden’s acoustic assessments and GIS dashboard document the actual state of every line and manhole, giving you the records regulators expect and letting you set maintenance intervals based on measured need rather than guesswork.

How do we know whether I&I will overwhelm our pipe capacity as our city grows?

You have to measure both how much I&I is entering your system and how close your pipes are to their limits. The episode points to capacity management and an I&I reduction plan as core parts of running a growing collection system. RH Borden’s high-density sensor network quantifies the I&I entering each basin, so you can plan capacity from real numbers and fix the sources before they force an expensive expansion.

Regulations and pollutants keep changing. How do we stay ahead instead of constantly reacting?

Staying ahead starts with always knowing the current condition of your system. As Leland Myers puts it, knowledge isn’t static, and new rules and pollutants keep arriving. RH Borden’s data-driven monitoring keeps an up-to-date picture of your collection system, so when requirements shift you’re deciding from current evidence rather than scrambling to catch up.

How do we keep our ratepayers and governing body supportive of infrastructure spending?

Keeping ratepayers and your governing body supportive starts with making the invisible visible and tying every dollar to an outcome they already care about. Sewer infrastructure is out of sight, so spending gets ignored until something fails and the conversation turns into crisis mode. The way to stay ahead is to lead with avoided cost rather than maintenance cost, show that money is spent precisely instead of broadly, and put a number on the risk of waiting. RH Borden’s data-driven tools make that case for you: SL-RAT shows you only cleaned the pipes that needed it, BASINiQ pinpoints the actual I&I sources driving up treatment costs and rates, and Manhole Virtual Models quantify degradation so you can prioritize with evidence. When maintenance is something you can prove instead of something you ask people to trust, the budget defends itself.

Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:03

The US Infrastructure Report Card gives the nation’s wastewater systems a grade of D+. Welcome to the Saving Our Sewers podcast, where we feature the practices, tools, technology and ideas that will save our sewers. Let’s get into it.

Eric Petersen: 00:20

Eric Peterson here, host of Saving Our Sewers podcast, where we feature city leaders, innovative engineers, and infrastructure experts who are shaping the future of rapidly growing municipalities through smarter technology and data-driven solutions. This episode is brought to you by RH Borden, providing data-driven approaches to wastewater collection system maintenance. RH Borden helps collection system operators bridge the gap of funding labor and other resources with technology that eliminates wasted cleaning and CCTV efforts, automates manhole management, and dramatically reduces inflow and infiltration. Learn more about RH Borden and how we are shaping the future of wastewater collection system management by visiting rhborden.com. So today I have with me an amazing guest, Leland Myers.

Leland has been in the industry for more than 35 years. But let me go back and kind of give you a quick bio of who he is. So he got a degree in the mid 70s and worked in the construction industry around the world in petrochemicals and probably another few other things, but came back to the state of Utah, got a degree in environmental engineering in 1984. After that, he worked for the Division of Water Quality for the state of Utah for a couple of years, and then moved to the Central Davis collection system, where he managed that organization for 35 years recently. So Leland has retired, and he has recently started a research group, and I’m going to let him describe a little bit about that research group.

And maybe we’ll backtrack then into his career in the wastewater industry and the interesting things that he’s come across over time. So, Leland, welcome to the podcast. I really appreciate your time today.

Leland Myers: 02:23

Sure. Now, you want me to tell you about research?

Eric Petersen: 02:27

Absolutely. Tell me about this research group that you started recently. And then we’ll kind of work backwards in your career to learn more about your experience.

Leland Myers: 02:37

Recent would probably be about 15 years ago, maybe a little longer than that. 18. Yeah. We were involved in a number of permitting issues relative to wastewater treatment plants and collection systems. I was also a member of the State of Utah Water Party at the time.

And so we collectively as a group of POTWS along the Wasatch Front, formed a group that we called the Wasatch Front Water Quality Council and. And our, our intent was to do ecosystem research so that we could either justify increasing permit requirements, reducing effluent loads in both, both organic as well as primarily at this time, nutrient issues. Or we would be able to show that those are not going to benefit the ecosystem. And so we began doing a lot of research, particularly Utah Lake Jordan River and Great Salt Lake. Those are the three ecosystems that the physical facilities that we represent discharge into.

And so we do a lot of the ecological research, we look at how the ecosystem functions and how nutrients affect that function, how the wastewater interacts with the ecosystem. We’re looking at other pollutant indicators and how other sources of pollutant arrive at the lake. One of the ones we’ve done a lot of work on in recent years is air deposition. This is when you have nutrients primarily in other pollutants, but primarily nutrients that get deposited on water bodies due to either enriched dust off of like in the case of Utah Lake off the old severe lake bed. Or it could come in through exhaust, tailpipe exhaust or other human caused issues.

They get into the air and then settle as it goes across these water bodies. And so that’s a significant amount of nutrients that go into it as an example. At the time we started the research, Utah Lake had about 250 plus or minus tons of phosphorus coming out of the wastewater treatment plants. Currently, because of upgrades to all those plants, that’s about 55 to 65 tons a year. So these are tons per year. Air deposition is somewhere between 130 to 300 tons a year dropping on the lake.

And so we went from being a major source to being a subsidiary source to air deposition. And so understanding how nutrients arrive at an ecosystem is critical to know whether or not you can change the ecosystem by changing discharge concentrations and or working on other sources of nutrients like stormwater and and or natural runoff. So that’s what we started doing. We worked on Utah, Lake Jordan River, Great Salt Lake, Jordan River. All of these systems are highly managed water systems.

So none of those systems are, are, are attaining any natural flow anymore. So. Right. Water out of Utah Lake, for instance, is pumped into the Jordan River. Unless the lake gets really high and hits a point in the elevation called compromise, it doesn’t flow out naturally.

It’s pumped and it’s pumped to meet irrigation demands downstream.

Eric Petersen: 06:25

And I bet that most people don’t know that.

Leland Myers: 06:28

Yeah. And so it’s very highly managed. And so the Jordan River after it, pumps water for irrigation needs. And then it’s almost completely dewatered. And then you get natural accretion water coming into the river and other sources of water as groundwater discharges or streams.

And that’s what replenishes the river as it goes on down further. So these ecosystems are very highly managed. And if we don’t change how we manage it, we really have a difficult time changing how the ecosystem functions. The Utah Lake, for example, has issues with cyanobacteria, which if the conditions are right, produce cyanotoxins. That’s a concern for both animal and human health.

But if you can change the conditions to stop that, that’s an issue that isn’t yet resolved. There are many things that you have little or no control over, like air deposition, and that’s certainly enough nutrients to keep the ecosystem hypertrophic.

Eric Petersen: 07:30

Right. So I have a question. BackTrack to the beginning of this. What was the kind of drive to develop this research group? Was there some sort of state mandate that came together and or was it kind of internally organically, or were you you would say, hey, I have some expertise, I think I can make a difference.

Or what was kind of the, the driving force for developing this, this group that you’re a part of and, and, and so involved in.

Leland Myers: 07:58

I think two points. Number one, nothing stays static. And in the world of wastewater and, and rules and regulations, there’s always changes. And then number two, at the end of the day, money is an important factor. And how much you charge the citizens for our services is critical to containing and maintaining public trust.

But also citizens are not willing to pay unless they feel there’s a strong reason why they should increase amounts. You know, it would be nice for all of us to operate plants that were so good that we’re discharging pure water at the end of the day, and we could do that, but the cost is enormous. And so what you want to do is justify the cost based upon what is necessary to support and sustain the ecosystem and its beneficial uses. So in 2000 and 2002, EPA got really heavily involved. And that’s the next phase of their work at this time was to look at nutrients.

They had looked at toxicants, they had looked at organic pollutants, and they moved it forward, the dial to say, we’re going to worry about nutrients. So the state of Utah got very nervous about nutrients, because the EPA is saying, put a whole bunch of water quality standards on this and make the nutrients go away. And so, and this is something they’ve done across the nation. Their reception across the nation is varied. Some states have moved aggressively on nutrients.

Others have said, no, we’re not going to do a lot on this until we see the ecological benefit. And so in Utah, we started looking at it. We recognized that the state Division of Water Quality wasn’t going to sit and do nothing. It was in their best interest because their. Partially funded through Arpa to keep EPA happy.

We recognize that it isn’t something we knew enough about to make an informed decision on.

Eric Petersen: 09:57

And no one got involved.

Leland Myers: 09:59

And no one was putting money into research to understand that. And so we went back to our group of people and said, we can sit back and wait for someone else to do this, or we can wait for someone to just create a rule that says we have to do something.

Eric Petersen: 10:15

So, so you were.

Leland Myers: 10:16

The horns and start researching these ecosystems. And so that’s right.

Eric Petersen: 10:20

So you were kind of seeing the shadow of, of some sort of a level or a large edict coming from the government. You said, well, let’s get ahead of that and avoid, you know, come up with your own kind of I don’t know if standards is the right word, but come up with your own methodologies and be proactive about heading this off rather than waiting for some sort of edict to come down from the top.

Leland Myers: 10:46

And at about the same time we formed the research group. The State of Utah formed a nutrient water quality workgroup, of which I was the chair of it, because I was on the Water Quality Board at the time. And so we started working on it at a statewide level. And this was a give and take process. We said, how do we make progress and still not break the bank, so to speak?

Because again, going from where we were to very stringent nutrients is extremely expensive, you know, so what we did is we looked at how we can do that. We, we were on the, we were involved in this task force. And what we did is we said, we need to negotiate how we move forward in a reasonable stepwise manner. Something that’s adaptive benefits the ecosystem and is initially affordable. And so what we did is we said it isn’t appropriate to put nutrient standards on a water body until we know that it’s going to be protective and necessary.

And, and, and as part of that, we made the decision as a group and our Poets were heavily involved in that, that the first place we ought to look at nutrient standards is the headwaters of the state where we get all of our drinking water from. And so if we protect something, we ought to look at those headwaters first. And so as a group, we moved forward with a lot of research and looked at the headwaters and eventually came up with nutrient criteria for the headwaters. We also then said, looking at the ecosystem, as you come down from the headwaters, what’s the next area of concern? There were a lot of the group’s attempts.

The nutrient workgroup from the state said we should come down stepwise out of those headwaters into other, more pristine waters to work on them first. The state finally made the decision that they were going to look at Utah Lake next, which was probably as if in retrospect, it was like jumping from the frying pan to the fire. It went from where you really had a lot of good information to somewhere where it’s very complex and very difficult to achieve a change. I don’t know if you understand the term regime shift, but ecosystems, when they go through a regime shift, they go from a higher to a lower state. And Utah Lake has gone through major regime shifts from where it used to be, a Clearwater ecosystem to where it’s a shallow hypertrophic system with wind driven sediment resuspension and a number of other issues that you have very little control over.

And so because of that, we said we’re not going to get somewhere really quickly on the nutrient issue in these lower areas. And so what we agreed to was to put in place a technology based standard. Initially, it was going to be for both nitrogen and phosphorus. When we looked at it, we said we really don’t need to put a nitrogen standard on it because everybody, when they treat phosphorus, will reduce the nitrogen dramatically also. And so we put the standard on phosphorus.

And we said where the discharges were somewhere between 3 to 6 parts per million of phosphorus in an average discharge. We put a technology standard in place because it was affordable. You could do it with chemicals if you wanted, or you could treat it biologically and then polish with chemicals. And so we said that standard had to be met initially. It was by 2020, but because of a lot of factors, including construction went wild and getting contractors in place was very difficult.

And then the pandemic that occurred, the completion date for that was, was then shifted to 2025. And so most of the plants, except for 1 or 2, are online now with the phosphorus of one, which has taken phosphorus down by 75% from where it was in the discharge. And that’s really it.

Eric Petersen: 14:56

Remarkable.

Leland Myers: 14:57

That required substantial upgrades at many treatment plants. For instance, Salt Lake City plans an $840 million upgrade that they’re not yet complete with, but they will be shortly.

Eric Petersen: 15:10

Right.

Leland Myers: 15:11

So it was almost two, $2.5 billion spent on these upgrades.

Eric Petersen: 15:17

So from what you’ve been involved in with this research group, what would you say is your is the, is the greatest benefit or the most positive outcome that you’ve seen thus far? I think there’s more to come in the future, but what could you put a pin in? You know something? You’re really happy that happened. What would that be?

Leland Myers: 15:38

What. One item I think. I think that’s the best benefit out of it. Again inures back to the citizens insofar that we haven’t gone crazy on upgrades to remove pollutants to a very low level without having a good justification for that change to occur. And so as an example, if you wanted to reduce almost all of your pollutant load.

In the wastewater you’re going to cost today, the average sewer rate in Utah is probably $50 a month. And that’s gone up at a rate over the last 1015 years at a rate much higher than inflation. You know, ten years ago we were probably 20, $25 a month. And so we doubled it in ten years. But if we needed to remove pollutants, particularly nitrogen, down to very low levels.

And this particularly if you had to do anything like total dissolved solids or other pollutants, that cost would go up anywhere between 50 and $100 more a month.

Eric Petersen: 16:47

Wow.

Leland Myers: 16:48

If that additional investment doesn’t benefit the ecosystem or doesn’t change the way the ecosystem functions to a higher and better state, it doesn’t make sense to do that. So we have brought research oriented science into the equation to make these decisions.

Eric Petersen: 17:08

Okay. So I think what you’re saying is, is that you’re pretty happy with, with kind of the budget ideas or the, the solutions that you’ve come up with have been economical, but have made a real impact in what’s going on in those ecosystems.

Leland Myers: 17:23

Right. And we’ve spent, I mean, again, over the last ten years, there’s been over $2.5 billion spent on plant upgrades to remove and reduce the levels of pollutants. So Provo just completed their upgrade and they were about 200 million just shy of that. And they went to a membrane filtration plant from a very old type plant, which was a trickling filter. Solids contact.

And so their nitrogen went down probably from a discharge of 20 to 25 parts per million, total nitrogen down to probably 5 to 10. So that’s a substantial reduction of nitrogen. Plus phosphorus went down from four or 5 to 1. And then on top of that you also reduced the organic material in the discharge. So if BOD going out was 15 to 25 it’s now two.

Eric Petersen: 18:20

So you saw across the board huge improvements.

Leland Myers: 18:23

You’re seeing dramatic increases in improvements in those waters. And in what we’re not seeing yet is a corresponding improvement in the ecosystems. So as of yet, these are just recent installations. So we’re going to need a few years of continued monitoring. But what we haven’t seen yet is whether or not those changes have actually done something to improve the ecosystem.

Eric Petersen: 18:48

Right. Well, I’d like to shift gears just a little bit, kind of down that same vein. What sort of I understand you’ve been involved in some legislation, writing some laws and, and kind of procedures. What can you tell me about, you know, what, what, what was and now what is what, what have you done to influence these things for the better? More of a kind of administrative or legislative side of things.

Leland Myers: 19:15

Well, there’s, there’s both administrative rules which are set through the Water Quality Board. And then there are the state statutes which are set through the legislature. And so we’ve worked on both fronts with the white, for instance, with the Water Quality Board. And this is done. When I was still on it, we passed the one phosphorus technology based standard, and there have been several other rules that have been passed to try and enhance ecosystem form and function that we’ve been involved with at the Water Quality Board level.

On the administrative rule side, in addition to that, the way a rule passes for water quality changes and particularly water quality standards is through the Water Quality Board that’s been delegated to do that by the legislature.

Eric Petersen: 20:05

Right. They’re the experts.

Leland Myers: 20:07

But having said that, well, they’re a citizen board that advises the Division of Water Quality. Now, having said that, they’re not experts. So the Water Quality Board are ordinary citizens who are.

Eric Petersen: 20:21

Serving, okay.

Leland Myers: 20:22

The appointed capacity. But because they’re not experts, they often fall. They’re often very willing to just follow what the division tells them to do. So what we’re seeing and what we saw, for instance, is that if the division felt they needed to pass a new rule that has a major cost impact, and the Water Quality Board said, gee, that sounds good, that the citizens were going to pay for this huge amount of cost with no legal representation oversight, meaning it wasn’t gone. It didn’t go through someone they elected.

It was all through appointments or through bureaucratic, bureaucratic channels. And so we went back to the legislature and said, is that really what you want? Do you want a decision that’s worth $100 million made by a non-elected board, or do you want to be willing to take part in that decision? And they said, oh, no, we want to know. We want to be part of the decision.

So we passed. We passed rule A. That said, at the value of a Water Quality Board decision exceeds a certain level, then it has to be approved by a legislative committee and if it exceeds a higher level, it has to be approved by the entire legislature so that there’s a check and balance on the bureaucracy to ensure that what they’re doing is what the citizens, or at least the citizens, elected officials think is the appropriate path to take.

Eric Petersen: 21:55

Wow.

Leland Myers: 21:55

And then we worked on a number of other systems, too, but they’re mostly all related to water quality standards and water quality rule setting processes.

Eric Petersen: 22:05

Gotcha. Well, okay. So I want to shift away from the, the, the legislature and the research. Let’s talk about the central Davis system and, and its current state right now. And, and maybe kind of go back in time what it was or maybe what it is now and then kind of move back in time to say what was it when you first showed up?

And so what’s changed? So you could just walk us in a backward timeline. I mean, you left it. Obviously, you’re the kind of guy that I think would go to a campsite and have it, have this mindset, say, I’m going to leave this campsite better than I found it. I’m sure you left central Davis the same way, but let’s kind of go back in time and start with when you left and all the improvements and then kind of work back.

Leland Myers: 22:53

Well, I got hired by Central Davis. I was working at the state as a review engineer and a construction review engineer. And I, one of the places I was helping was Central Davis. And. The, the that’s my phone.

And I’m gonna just let it ring.

Eric Petersen: 23:15

Yeah, that’s.

Leland Myers: 23:16

Gonna go away. But anyway, I went to the I, I was, I was at one of their board meetings and they had already been under administrative review by EPA. This was at the same time delegation was being transferred to the state. But the EPA said, we’re not going to transfer your permit because you’re a bad actor and you’ve done a lot of things we don’t like. And so they had actually summoned the board for General Davis and said, if you don’t fix things up, we’re going to put you in jail.

And so the board was very nervous about wanting to get their act together. They didn’t have any good operators, but they were basic operators and didn’t understand how to make anything better. And they didn’t have a lot of key budget to do it either. So Central Davis offered me a job to work as a manager, and I thought, I’ll be here for a few years. This will be kind of fun.

So I took the job and at the time the plant was a trickling filter treatment plant, which are good economical treatment plants, but they can only achieve a certain amount of removal efficiency. And also at the time, the district had 40% of their hydraulic load, and anywhere between 40 and 80% of their organic load was coming from a potato chip manufacturer. And so they couldn’t use an old trickling filter process, they couldn’t meet the standards. So what we did is we upgraded the plant to include activated sludge using an oxidation ditch. And then what we set forward is to, but we kept the trickling filter in place because it’s cheap.

And it was. You didn’t have to pay to keep it running much. And, and on top of that, if we blended, we could meet effluent limits that we needed to meet. And so we installed an oxidation ditch, a couple of ditches and eventually clarifiers. And then we set about working on how to optimize treatment through an oxidation ditch.

So we used a number of experts at the time, one of which was named Bob Okie, who was the engineer with Imco that brought oxidation ditches to the US. And so what we did is we worked on how to optimize the treatment so we could get the lowest phosphorus and nitrogen, as well as organic removal out of the system. And, we changed the permit compliance to where we were always in compliance, and haven’t had violations in decades now. And on top of that, on top of that, we then won awards from EPA for one of the nationally best treatment plants in the country. In fact, we won the number one award, the number first position award for outstanding operations and maintenance.

Eric Petersen: 25:59

And it’s just like going from last place to champion.

Leland Myers: 26:02

Yeah. And so.

Eric Petersen: 26:03

That’s amazing.

Leland Myers: 26:04

We did that. They’re still facing challenges because a pure oxidation dish is an extended aeration mode. It doesn’t have the basins that were built at the time and didn’t have segmented areas. So they have to be creative to get the nutrients down, but they can do it if they work on it hard and they do very well. The current manager and assistant manager do an excellent job of, of, of optimizing that treatment process to keep it.

So it does perform. So since 1998, when the last ditch was built, they haven’t had to upgrade the plant other than to do renewal and replacement of existing infrastructure. And they’re still able to meet the permits. So they have no debt on the plant. And so it’s been very successful for them.

Does that mean they were always able to meet compliance issues? Maybe not. Because as I started out by saying rules change in the future and they might have to.

Eric Petersen: 26:56

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So you so you implemented a few things, some changes that have been in place for years and years and still are the flywheel still spinning and, and the system seems to be performing within the standards now. And how long do you think it will be before a major upgrade, you’re going to be needed. I mean, what is your prediction with that?

Leland Myers: 27:22

They’re in the process of doing, looking at whether or not they need to make upgrades now to see whether or not they need what they can do or what they should be doing to plan for the future.

Eric Petersen: 27:34

Right.

Leland Myers: 27:35

Let me back up for a minute. We also have a collection system, 350 miles of pipe in the ground or 300 miles. And so the collection systems at the time, EPA was going through a number of. Worries over collection systems, and so in Utah, we said we had. We had done a complete collection system management plan for the district, even though it wasn’t required at the time.

And then Utah said, we need to do something because the EPA is giving us a hard time. So we sat down with the district with the Division of Water Quality staff, and we created a sanitary sewer management plan program for the state that was then implemented in state administrative rules. And so it followed much of what we had already done at the district. And it’s still in use today where you have.

Eric Petersen: 28:26

Yes it is. I know about this a lot. Yeah.

Leland Myers: 28:30

And so those management plan rules for operations of a collection system are beneficial because it forces people to look at renewal and replacement issues. And, it forces people to look at maintenance sequences and how much maintenance is necessary. So those things went along. And then we now jump forward to today there again, like I said, nothing changes. Some of the biggest pollutants of concern now that people are really stressed over are poly floral alkaline substances, PFAs.

And so this is a major newsworthy pollutant. But really we don’t have good research out there yet talking about how, how, how much damage is there to humans at the concentrations we see. You know, it’s called a forever chemical.

Eric Petersen: 29:22

This is the plastics we’re talking about.

Leland Myers: 29:24

No, PFAs is it’s it’s it plastics use it. But it’s not just plastic. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s this carbon fluorine bond. And they use it for a lot of different products. So if you want to make something durable in the environment, like a, like a, a heart pacemaker or some other implant in your body, you put a lot of PFAs into it because it if you put enough carbon fluorine bonds together, you know, the original ones were PFOA and PFOs, and they have an eight carbon bond with this fluorine.

They’re virtually indestructible on an environmental basis. That’s why they’re called forever chemical. And so the concern is if you can’t break them down in the environment, they just accumulate. And so we worry about them at very low concentrations currently for drinking water. The limit, which is not what they’d like to see, is the actual limit, but it’s the limit that they finally chose.

EPA did because the limit is that water is a measurable one is four parts per trillion. So we’re talking about very, very low concentrations. And and and that’s depending on where that ends up may drive additional treatment requirements. So you have to keep looking forward to all of the new things that might hit you, as well as keeping renewal and replacement of your plant going. Right.

It’s a challenge.

Eric Petersen: 30:59

Well, let’s, let’s kind of circle back to the wastewater collection systems. What, what are kind of like the, the 2 or 3 highlights of, of your plans that you implemented in Central Davis that have really made an impact for the maintenance of collection systems that permeate all across the state. What are some of the highlights of what you implemented?

Leland Myers: 31:23

I wouldn’t say they permeate across the state. They were just used as the model to create.

Eric Petersen: 31:27

Well, okay, let’s leave it at that.

Leland Myers: 31:28

Because I was, I was involved in writing the regulation and that’s what it included. However, and so you’re going to use what you have, right? I don’t have to recreate it if I’ve already done something. And so, and so I worked with Jennifer Robinson at the state of Utah. And we put this together.

And I think the key component is understanding what levels of maintenance are needed to keep your system from having excessive amounts of accumulation or plugging problems.

Eric Petersen: 31:59

Right.

Leland Myers: 32:00

And, and that’s morphed over time too, because we went from worried about just grit and sand and other things to worried about wet wipes, for instance. Yeah. And they created a change in how you have to look at things. And so we, you’ve got the, the understanding of the ecosystem and the need to do that of the piping systems and the need to do that in order to ensure that you maintain it adequately. Is that once a year, or is that once every five years?

Well, you’re given the opportunity of making a decision as to how frequently you’re going to do the maintenance, but you have to have good justification for it, which means you’ve got to have records. And so it talks about record keeping and the need to maintain adequate data on those ecosystems and on these pipeline systems so that, you know, the condition of it. So you’re always evaluating, is there going to be a potential failure. And so that’s. And then the other one you have to look at is then they call it the sea cap portion system evaluation, capacity management plan or analysis plan.

But anyway it’s to look at whether or not you’re going to exceed a pipeline’s capacity because your growth is putting more into that pipeline. And so you need to have green, and you need to have modeling so that you can understand whether or not your ecosystem is going to be flooded based upon a pipe not being able to handle the potential fall. Right. And that means then you have to understand inflow and infiltration. And then you probably need a plan to say when it’s excessive.

How do I stop it?

Eric Petersen: 33:40

Right. Yeah. So it sounds to me like you’ve created a framework that’s flexible for each individual system based on, you know, current data and historical data to justify how a system manager would care for their systems. Is that what I understand? There’s some flexibility in that.

Leland Myers: 34:04

Sure. It was intended to be flexible so it can meet your needs at the same time. Keep EPA off the state’s back. So we tried to meet all those. And sometimes it’s for some people who think it might be a bit onerous and excessive and others think it’s not quite enough, but they do more.

So that’s the way. That’s the way rules are.

Eric Petersen: 34:26

That’s been my experience as well. We see a little bit of a spectrum, some that are hyper vigilant and then others that are maybe less so. And we see varying degrees of performance as well. We’re in the position to kind of see some of that and, and help out cities and districts kind of get ahead of their challenges. So. Interesting.

Well, Leland, I really enjoyed our time together. I, I’ve got one last question for you. And it’s, it’s a, it’s somewhat personal, but it’s like, it’s, it’s this, this is who, Who was your. Who was your mentor and what was their best advice?

Leland Myers: 35:11

Who is my mentor? Yeah, probably had several of those over time in the wastewater.

Eric Petersen: 35:16

Pick one of them. Yeah.

Leland Myers: 35:17

In the wastewater world. Probably from the standpoint of getting involved in ecosystem analysis and that. But also wastewater treatment. It was probably the doctor. Bob.

Okay. Yeah.

Eric Petersen: 35:34

Okay. What was his wisdom?

Leland Myers: 35:39

Well, if it was I think, I think the wisdom is easy to understand. Everybody knows it. But that wisdom was you always have to keep learning, you know.

Eric Petersen: 35:50

Yes.

Leland Myers: 35:51

Knowledge is not static knowledge. Knowledge is not static. And there’s always something new that’s coming down the pipeline. So you have to keep learning. That could be new pollutants coming down a real pipeline.

It could be. It could be new knowledge that you need to implement. It could be new regulatory requirements that you have to address. But there’s always changes that are going to occur. And you need to adapt your knowledge to meet what those changes demand.

Eric Petersen: 36:19

I think that’s something you mentioned right at the beginning is things are always changing. And so the adaptation to new information is really important. Well, I wow, you are a wealth of knowledge and experience, Leland. I really appreciate your time with me today. We, I, I’m sure I’m going to see you at more conferences.

I know you just can’t get away from all the guys in the wastewater industry, so I will certainly see you there. And again, thank you for your time this morning.

Leland Myers: 36:50

Have a good day.

Eric Petersen: 36:51

All right. Take care.

Outro: 36:52

Thanks for listening to the Saving Our Sewers podcast. We’ll be back next time with more insights you can use. Be sure to click and subscribe to get future episodes.