A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Harvard University Art Museum | In the Sierras, Lake Tahoe | Albert Bierstadt

Best is water

— Pindar 476 B.C.

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) has an extensive catalog that sets the standard of care for water quality and piping systems running through all communities.

Download: Full List of AWWA/ANSI Standards

We approach them from the point of view of education communities; some with agriculture, vast hospital systems heavily dependent upon a higher level of water quality and district energy plants.  Like most every technology in the United States, water issues enliven political discourse.   Essential features of water supply — such as backflow protection, separation, piping systems to playground water fountains, etc. — are subordinated to fury over to access and tariff issues.   For the moment we steer away from them.

The landing page for the AWWA standardization enterprise is linked below:

Standard Notices

The original University of Michigan standards advocacy enterprise engaged in some back-and-forth with the backflow and cross-connection technical committees.   It found ambiguity in the language found in AWWA C510-C511-C512 covering reduced pressure zone (RPZ) values that caused some education facility units to over-specify RPZ valves for all facility classes.   Many research universities have enterprises that create toxic water waste which must be blocked from entering the municipal water supply.  Some of that back-and-forth is recounted in the workspace linked below.

We found that minimum requirements for backflow prevention technology was easier managed at state level plumbing safety administrative boards.

Several AWWA standards are now open for public review; AWWA G430 Security Practices for Operation and Management among them.  We point you toward them; though, in the interest of resource conservation, we will follow but not advocate user-interest in this product at the moment.  It appears to have stabilized compared with other standards in the water safety domain (though that could change).

Comments due August 9th.  

We find AWWA best practice literature heavily referenced in school district, college and university design guidelines and construction contracts.   We do a status check of the AWWA suite every month during our Water teleconferences.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [11-57] [Various]

Category: Water, Plumbing, Mechanical

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Ron George, Richard Robben, Steve Snyder, Larry Spielvogel

Workspace / AWWA

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Students & Young Professionals

#Backflow Incident:
A winery in a small town of Italy, backpressures 1,000 liters of wine into the water supply. The cause, a faulty valve.https://t.co/pFMIUSfwfp

— USC Foundation (@USCFCCCHR) March 9, 2020