MTU Engineers Earn Landmark Award for Water Treatment Design Approach
HOUGHTON, MI--Two Michigan Tech environmental engineering professors
have won the prestigious Landmark Award presented annually by the Association
of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) to authors
of "an outstanding publication that has made a valuable contribution to
the field and has withstood the test of time."
Presidential Professor John Crittenden and Associate Professor David
Hand, both of MTU's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
received the award for their 1987 article titled "Design Considerations
for GAC (granular activated carbon) treatment of Organic Chemicals," which
appeared in JAWWA (Journal of the American Water Works Association). Coauthors
of the article are Benjamin W. Lykins, Jr., chief of systems cost evaluation
at the Environmental Protection Agency office in Cincinnati, and Harish
Arora, then a doctoral student at Michigan Tech.
The design techniques developed by the group, which use charcoal filters
to remove hazardous chemicals, have aided drinking water treatment technologies
in municipalities across the nation and around the world.
"We've been consulting with municipal water treatment officials for 20
years," says Hand. "In this country we've worked on problems in Denver,
Tampa, Cincinnati, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and several California cities,
including Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, and Irvine."
Abroad, the Michigan Tech duo have been called in to help with water treatment
systems in Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and Japan.
"Most serious drinking water problems are caused by industrial solvents,
pesticides, or munitions plant wastes spilling on the surface and leaching
down into the groundwater that supplies the water we drink," explains
Crittenden. "Private homeowners who get their water from wells have no
protection against this type of contamination and traditional municipal
treatment systems do not remove these kinds of chemicals."
Crittenden notes that traditional treatment methods normally add chemicals
to water to remove iron and manganese or filter water through sand to
remove particulate matter, bacteria, and viruses. But those methods don't
remove the hazardous chemicals that come from industrial, pesticide, or
munitions plant spills. Also unaffected by traditional treatment technologies,
are leaks from underground petroleum storage tanks.
"As a result, these types of contamination can pose long term human health
hazards, such as increased cancers, if left untreated," says Crittenden.
"Our paper describes how to design charcoal filters to remove these hazardous
chemicals in the most economical manner."
For years engineering consulting firms have contacted Crittenden and
Hand for help in designing a cost effective way for removing these hazardous
chemicals from drinking water supplies. In response, the Michigan Tech
colleagues developed a software package that describes their process and
is widely used today.
"Companies such as Amway are using our software and consequently, homeowners
using their products can be assured they are protecting themselves by
installing and properly using their charcoal filters," says Hand. "In
addition, NASA has adopted the techniques for recycling water in manned
spacecraft."
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11/13/00-MTN388
For more information, contact John Crittenden at jcritt@mtu.edu
or David Hand at dwhand@mtu.edu
