Corrosion Control and Water Quality Improvement in Drinking Water Distribution Systems

Taught by nationally known experts, this course combines important principles, latest technologies, and case studies to help you improve and control water quality in your distribution systems and premise plumbing. The U.S. EPA’s updated Lead and Copper Rule imposes stricter requirements, and this course describes why simply adding orthophosphate isn’t enough to ensure long-term compliance and water quality. It goes beyond the rule’s basic recommendations, providing water managers, operators, and engineers with effective, sustainable corrosion control strategies that address lead, copper, and other distribution system challenges.

• Water quality managers, water utility engineers, and water system operators responsible for ensuring compliance with updated regulations and improving water quality.
• Consulting engineers and public health professionals who need to understand the latest technologies and strategies for effective corrosion control.
• Federal agency and military base personnel, regulatory staff, and engineering students seeking practical insights into water quality management and corrosion control.

Module 1: First Steps to Corrosion Control and Water Quality Improvement

This module gives you the fundamentals behind lead and copper control and the comprehensive perspective of water quality.  You leave this module with a method to quickly evaluate the water quality in your water system.

• Session 1: The Lead and Copper Rule
• Session 2: Going Beyond the Lead and Copper Rule
• Session 3: A Quick Start to Evaluating a Water System
• Session 4: Components of Water Quality Interconnections: Uniform Corrosion
• Session 5: Components of Water Quality Interconnections: Chemical Scales and Biofilms

Module 2:  A “Living” Desktop Study

The quick system water quality evaluation is expanded to encompass other available system information in order to write a desktop study.  A desktop study is required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an initial step to corrosion control.  You leave this module with the ability to write a desktop study for your water system.  Updating the report every year makes it an evolving “living” desktop study where it is possible to detect corrosion issues early in their onset.

• Session 1: A “Living” Desktop Study: Part 1
• Session 2: A “Living” Desktop Study: Part 2
• Session 3: A “Living” Desktop Study: Part 3
• Session 4: A “Living” Desktop Study: Part 4

Module 3:  Tools for Corrosion and Water Quality Control

Recommendations made in the desktop study can be carried out using the tools of corrosion and water quality control discussed in this learning module.  You leave this module with a strategic plan to carry out recommendations from your desktop study for both testing of corrosion control strategies and on-going monitoring to track the status of lead and copper release as well as other distribution system water quality issues.

• Session 1: Water System Hygiene
• Session 2: Corrosion Control Chemicals
• Session 3: Calculating Corrosion Control Chemical Dosages
• Session 4: Methods for Testing and Monitoring
• Session 5: Monitoring Plan
• Session 6: Experimental Design for Demonstration Testing and Monitoring

Module 4:  Data Analysis and Process Control

This learning module gives you tools to make your testing and monitoring data "talk to you", to document the success of your lead and copper control efforts, to warn you of trends toward diminished water quality, and to continuously inform your operations for improvement of water quality.  If you choose, you can leave this module with a strategy for on-going process control of water quality.

• Session 1: Water Quality and Water System Data Analysis Part 1
• Session 2: Water Quality and Water System Data Analysis Part 2
• Session 3: Water Quality and Water System Data Analysis Part 3
• Session 4: Water Quality and Water System Data Analysis Part 4
• Session 5:  Process Control

"This course brought deep understanding of water quality to help execute our decision making."

"I now have a much greater understanding of treatment and maintenance issues to improve water quality in our system."

Abigail Cantor

Abigail F. Cantor, PE is a chemical engineer specializing in water quality investigations and proactive prevention of water quality issues, and is the founder of Process Research Solutions, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin. She has more than 30 years of experience in the field of drinking water quality. She is the author of the book “Water Distribution System Monitoring: A Practical Approach for Evaluating Drinking Water Quality” and the co-author of the AWWA Manual of Water Supply Practices M58: Internal Corrosion Control in Water Distribution Systems. She is a member of the American Water Works Association Lead and Copper Rule Task Advisory Workgroup. She earned her BS degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and her MS degree in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City.