Water resource recovery facilities

About the event

This presentation will look at water scarcity including pressure from population growth and distribution; provide statistics about how much usable water there is available and how it is being used; discuss the importance of reusing water to the maximum extent possible, and beneficially recovering and using other resources from wastewater including nitrogen, phosphorous, energy, and organic biosolids. Examples of how and where this is being done will be presented. Roadblocks to potable reuse, such as compounds of emerging concern and negative public perception will also be explored.

James H. Clark is a senior vice president of the engineering/construction firm Black & Veatch Corporation. Located at the firm’s Los Angeles office, he has managed environmental and water quality improvement projects with constructed value exceeding $3 billion, including serving as the Senior Process Engineer and a Project Manager for the design of the City of Los Angeles Hyperion Treatment Plant, a 15-year, $1.1 billion wastewater treatment and reclamation project which was named one of the ten most outstanding public works projects of the 20th Century by the American Public Works Association (along with the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal). He recently managed the design for the $140 million expansion of the Orange County (CA) Water District Groundwater Replenishment System, one of the most famous indirect potable reuse projects in the world, which completed construction in 2015. He was also the Project Director for the design and construction of the City of Los Angeles $45 million Echo Park Lake rehabilitation, which was one of the five finalists for the 2015 ASCE OPAL award. He served as President of the global Water Environment Federation from 2001 to 2002; appointed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to serve on the selection committee for the Stockholm Water Prize, considered to be the Nobel Prize for the environment; received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers; named one of the most influential people in public works by Public Works magazine; received the WSU Alumni Achievement Award, and holds Chair 176 in the International Water Academy headquartered in Oslo, Norway. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Water Environment Research Foundation, Water for People, the US Water Alliance, and the Stockholm Water Prize Founders Council. He is a Fellow and Life Member in ASCE and WEF. He graduated from WSU with a BS in Civil Engineering and MS in Environmental Engineering.