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I am part of the staffing initiative for CDM, a tier-one consulting organization involved in numerous water and wastewater projects around the globe.  As business grows, so does our need to hire engineers!  I am aggressively recruiting for a number of Florida opportunities, and I am hopeful to find this blog as a new avenue to share the word.

CDM is one of the premier consulting organizations supporting the water and wastewater industry currently involved in some of the largest water treatment projects for the state of Florida.  Our firm is a full service provider with openings for PE certified, EE or CE, 6+ years of industry experience with municipal or industrial clients.

In addition - we are hiring for project managers and business development specialists!

As this is my first attempt in utilizing a blog to interact with engineers, please post to blog if there is interest to learn more.  I will respond as soon as possible.

Can't wait to hear from you,
Kristine Trecartin
CDM - 
trecartinka@cdm.com 
Phone: 617-452-6722

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interview  (may require an account to view), by Kimberley A. Strassel with Bjorn Lomborg the leader of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist".

Lomborg's group has brought together leading economists and political leaders to come to consensus on setting priorities for solving the world's most pressing problems.  The key to setting a proper public works agenda, according to the Copenhagen group, is to start with the projects that offer the greatest human and economic benefit in return for the investment required to get the job done.

Dirty Water

Interestingly, both the economists and the politicians rated dirty water among the top issues that are both the most urgent to solve and offer the most immediate return on resources invested.  Both groups put global warming at the bottom  of the list.

Certainly there is evidence at hand that water is a serious issue. In "Dirty Water:Estimated Deaths from Water-Related Diseases 2000-2020" (PDF), a research report dated August 15, 2002, Peter H. Gleick of the Pacific Institute Research provides estimates of annual deaths from dirty water that rage from over 2 million (diarrheal diseases only) to 12 million (includes all water-related diseases).  A March 2004 UNICEF news release says that dirty water kills 5,000 children a day.

"Our history shows that we solve more problems than we create," Lomborg told Strassel.  But we have to get focused on the right (rational) priorities, Lomborg holds, rather than letting emotional issues distract us from making the right choices.  In the Wall Street Journal interview, Lomborg contrasts how $1.00 spent on HIV/AIDS prevention would result in $40 of benefit, while a $1.00 spent on global warming might yield two cents to 25 cents of benefit.

Michael Kanellos, editor at large at CNET News.com, wrote on the Future Tech Blog, "What's the biggest hazard for the future?  Global warming?  Oil shortages?  A small, but growing number of people think that a looming shortage of drinking water constitutes a much larger crisis."  In this and other articles, Kanellos describes how new technologies, such as nanotech filters may soon offer inexpensive ways to remove both chemicals and viruses from water.

So if dirty water stands way above global warming when political leaders make the tough choices, and if known (and future) solutions are at hand, why isn't there more public outcry for clean water?  Why is it that there appears to be so little public awareness that clean water supply is a big issue for much of the underdeveloped world?

Well, how many civil engineers do you know who are speaking out about the problem and its solutions?  What about the those of you in this business--academics, equipment and chemical makers, and facility managers?  You probably know the answers and are able to offer the solutions.  And maybe you talk about clean water issues all the time among yourselves.  But have you made the effort to lead a public discussion (or even raise public awareness) about clean water?

So here you have it: consumers in the developed world spend untold fortunes on bottled water because they've concluded it must be better than the stuff coming out of their taps.  Meanwhile, folks in the less developed world really should be drinking (and cooking with) bottled water, if they could afford it.  As for the tap water that our enlightened consumers sometimes disdain, it could save countless lives were it available in the rest of the world.

This Blog is Your Voice

My purpose as moderator of this blog is to help each of you to develop your own public voice.  This blog is a medium where you can exercise your knowledge and lend your voice to the ideas and issues that are important to the water and wastewater industry.  Becoming an author on this blog is free, and you'll find it's surprisingly easy to post an article. 

To open your free blog account and add your voice to the dialog, write to don@waterandwastewater.com. In the subject line please write "sign me up for the w/w blog."

Don Dunnington
Blog moderator