Municipal Resource Recovery Design Community

The Municipal Resource Recovery Design Community (MRRDC) shall serve as the home of Federation members that share common technical interests in municipal wastewater treatment design and are drawn together to be the stewards of this knowledge area.

The community shall develop, recommend, support, and conduct programs of general and technical information relating to the advancement of municipal wastewater treatment design practices.

In so doing, this community will provide support and technical content to other Federation and/or Member Association Committees a) for the development of various technical publications, b) for the development and delivery of various Federation Technical programs such as specialty conferences and WEFTEC, and c) as requested, to advise the Board of Trustees, House of Delegates of Federation and/or Member Association Committees on municipal wastewater treatment design matters.

Chair
Tanja Rauch-Williams, 2024 - 2026
Tel: 720-670-0479
Email: trauch-williams@metrowaterrecovery.com 

Past Chair
Mehran Andalib, 2024 - 2026
Tel: 508-246-8228
Email: mehran.andalib@gmail.com

Focus Groups  Work Groups

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Focus Groups

Fundamentals Outreach Focus Group (FOS)

Mission
To promote outreach related to resource recovery fundamentals across the industry.

Goals

• Provide opportunities through multiple media and engagement platforms for students, operations and maintenance staff, young engineers, experienced engineers, and administration and management staff to learn or relearn resource recovery fundamentals.
• Create fact sheets to disseminate fundamental information and provide an avenue for committee members to gain experience in developing technical content.
• Collaborate with other WEF committees in the creation of factsheets, workshops, webcasts, and other committee activities.
• Provide pathways for young professionals to collaborate with experienced professionals in all committee activities, thus facilitating long-term integration into the broader MRRDC and WEF community.

Recent Past and On-going Activities

• WEFTEC 2018: led Mobile Session.
• WEFTEC 2019: Submitted proposal for Solids Stabilization Workshop.
• Factsheet development for Sanitary Sewer Lift Station, Pump Selection Guide, and Membranes.

 Planned Deliverables/Actions for 2018 - 2019

• WEFTEC 2019: Lead a mobile session and a workshop.
• WEFTEC 2020: Complete proposal for a workshop.
• Factsheets: Finalize/publish those in-progress and initiate new factsheets.
• Conduct quarterly Focus Group update calls.
• Notify Focus Group members of volunteer opportunities.

Leading Edge Outreach Focus Group (LEOS)

Mission
LEOS identifies and develops programming focused on the education of leading-edge practices in resource recovery design technologies; this programming involves facilitating the compilation and dissemination of technical information developed from within the activities of the MRRDC at large to the broader WEF membership in collaboration with WEF staff.

 Goals

• Disseminate WEF description of leading-edge technologies.
• Establish liaisons with other relevant groups (MRRDC Work Groups, LIFT, WE&RF, and WEF Research & Innovation Committee, IWA Leading Edge Technology Conference).
• Identify ways to communicate with WEF members about leading-edge technologies.
• Identify leading-edge technologies and organize them by work groups.
• Identify innovative technology abstracts during WEFTEC submission.
• Develop and implement a topic-tracking tool.

 Past, Current, and Future Activities

• Collaboration with the Water Environment & Technology (WE&T) journal staff to identify pertinent topics related to leading edge/innovative technology, and prepare papers, such as for advanced primary treatment/primary filtration, for publication in WE&T.
• Collaboration with LIFT to facilitate the achievement of common objectives.
• Identification of leading edge/innovative technologies, such as advanced primary treatment/carbon diversion, potential design criteria issues, and development of informational fact sheets.
• Convene group conference meetings every two months.
• Prepare annual collaboration report with WE&T and LIFT.

Publications Focus Group

Mission
To coordinate the development and review of all design‐related technical publication materials through active involvement with WEF's Technical Practice Committee; the Chair serves as liaison to the TPC.

Program Symposia Focus Group

Mission
To arrange and manage the WEFTEC technical program; the Focus Group Chair serves on the WEF Program Committee

Workshops Focus Group

Mission
To review and sponsor pre-conference workshops for WEFTEC; the Focus Group Chair serves on the WEF Program Committee's Workshop Review Group

Nominating Focus Group

Mission
To assist the MRRDC in soliciting and supporting recommendations for various committee and sub-committee positions based on an individual’s qualifications and interests.

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Work Groups

Knowledge management consists of multiple subcommittees the MRRDC identifies as “Work Groups. These Work Groups convert research and/or “knowledge practice gaps” into a peer-reviewed deliverables useful for practitioners. They are intended to have a “life span” that reflects the relevance to industry practices. They may be “sunsetted” when deliverables are completed and/or if it is determined that the primary drivers for the Work Group’s topics are deemed no longer of high priority in the advancement of the industry.

Water Reuse

Mission
To inform and provide deliverables to practitioners within the MRRDC Subcommittee and WEF members at large on different design or implementation strategies for water reuse from the perspective of the municipal sector.

Activities
Fact sheets, Review group for water reuse-related materials

Modeling Expert Group of the Americas (MEGA)

Mission
The primary goal of the work group is two-fold 1) expand the use of models for municipal and industrial process design and operation; and, 2) education and training. The scope of MEGA’s activities places it in a unique position. MEGA transcends the typical work group definition because modeling is now so prevalent in so many MRRDC activities.

Activities
WEF webcasts; OWWLs; biannual newsletters created in close coordination with MEGA YPs; workshops at WEFTEC and other conferences; coordination with many MRRDC work groups; mentoring MEGA YPs

MEGA YPs

Mission
To develop, recommend, support, and conduct programs of general and technical information relating to the advancement of municipal wastewater treatment modeling. The MEGA YP subcommittee was established in January 2016.

Activities
Networking and outreach; mentoring opportunities with experienced professionals, biannual newsletters; annual WEF webcast; planning and organizing WEFTEC technical sessions and workshops; and writing white papers, fact sheets and OWWLs

Biofilms Interest Group

Mission
The biofilm interest group is a working group within the MRRDC for members interested in biofilm reactor technologies. Its areas of focus include research, design, modeling, simulation, and cost estimation. Our goals are to disseminate fundamental knowledge and recent innovations concerning biofilm reactors to the WEF community.

Activities
Annual WEFTEC meetings including presentations on specific biofilm topics; WEF webcasts; workshops and sessions at WEFTEC and WRRmod

Models for Operations

Mission
To reduce obstacles hindering model application at wastewater utilities

Focus

1. Define metrics of successful implementation of models for operations.
2. Identify model applications where the greatest return in investment and greatest benefit is to be had.
3. Identify software development needs.
4. Address training needs.

Activities
Conferences submittals, such as for WEFTEC and WRRmod; WE&T articles and Operator Essential Columns; OWWLs related to modeling fundamentals

Preliminary Treatment

Relationship and Role of Deammonification

Resource Recovery

Instrumentation and Control

Energy & Carbon Recovery

Wet Weather Treatment