Info-Flo July 2015

Association News

President’s Message On behalf of the Kansas Small Flows Board, I hope all of you are enjoying your summer. For those of you who are installers, I know that the heavy rains in many parts of the state may have affected your scheduling and even your wallet. Let’s hope the rain bene-fitted the farmers and others who needed it! I am excited about upcoming training ses-sions that will be offered this year and the opportunity to possibly hold a conference at a Wichita location in 2017!

- Clem Karlin, KSFA President Conference News

The new speed vending event at t his year’s conference was a success and we look to do that in the future! Now that we have a better idea of the potential duration of the event, the conference committee can schedule ac-cordingly for future conferences. The committee has been in contact with a Wichita hotel for the 2017 conference. We think we found a great location that meets our exhibitor’s needs as well as being afforda-ble for attendees. The committee plans a vis-it and stay at the hotel to finalize the deal.

2016 Conference & Tradeshow

SAVE THE DATES: February 10th-12th. We have pushed the date back a week so that we don’t interfere with a national concrete show. There were some exhibitors who were not able to attend this year’s conference due to this national show.

Kansas Clean Water Grant

KSFA will be offer more training sessions this year to fulfill the Kansas Clean Water grant requirements. We are planning a Soils Workshop for September in Ellis County, Hays, KS. The grant provides scholarships for Regulators/Sanitarians to attend the training. KSFA is administering the grant and has pro-vided 38 scholarships thus far to four differ-ent training events. There will be more to come. KSFA and KDHE will keep you posted as trainings are scheduled. What a great op-portunity EPA 319 funding has provided!

Info-Flo

Kansas Small Flows Association

Newsletter Content

Page 3: NOWRA Update

Page 5: New Soil Application

Page 7: Fun & Games

Page 8: Congrats to NEHA certificate holders

Page 10: Thank our Sunflower Sponsors!

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NOWRA Continues Lobbying Efforts - Charlene Weiss Hopefully you are aware of the lobbying efforts initiated by the NOWRA Board in 2014. Thomas (Tommy) Cassidy and his firm were hired by NOWRA to direct this effort. Tommy has represented the water and wastewater industry before Congress and EPA, and was the perfect fit for NOWRA’s efforts. Our Association and many onsite/decentralized sewer businesses, donated to this effort. NOWRA’s board knew from the start that this would be a long-term and regular activity of NOWRA moving forward.

The first major effort was undertaken last summer. NOWRA and many representatives from the do-nating businesses took our message to Washington. We knew that some education would need to take place to better familiarize Congress on what onsite /decentralized systems are, and how many homes, businesses and towns in the United States utilize these systems for safe and effective wastewater treat-ment. What an uphill climb since centralized sewers, big pipe systems, are so much more familiar to our representatives! The major educational pieces, based on a lot of statistics, that were used included: ap-proximately 26% of the population in the US (about 85 million Americans), use onsite and decentralized wastewater treatment; it is an industry that creates many small business/private sector jobs; the wastewater treatment provided by onsite and decentralized systems meets or exceeds the quality pro-duced by central sewerage plants; the benefits of using the soil as final treatment versus discharging to riv-ers and streams; a cost effective alternative. Last, but certainly not least, was to emphasize the disparity in funding from EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund. While the ratio of centralized infrastructure to de-centralized infrastructure is roughly 3:1, the funding for centralized versus decentralized has averaged a ratio of 200:1!

The next step was to testify before the Appropriations Committee! On behalf of NOWRA and its donors and affiliates, Tom Fritts presented talking points to the Committee Members. Since we were emphasizing funding, most of the talking points addressed the number of onsite and decentralized systems used in the US versus the funding disparity that exists with appropriations from EPA funding sources. Basically we are asking for greater financial and material support for decentralized wastewater treatment systems in the fiscal year 2016 Environmental Protection Agency Appropriations Bill.

So now, about a year after the first contact with members of Congress, the lobbying efforts continue with NOWRA’s Government Action Day on Capitol Hill that will take place on July 14, 2015. Letters were sent to all the members of Congress that sit on appropriation committees. The letters emphasize the same message that NOWRA has been delivering from the start: the number and benefits of decentralized sys-tems and the disparity in funding such infrastructure. The letter states: “Since 1990, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund has funded nearly $100 billion in projects to build, expand, upgrade, repair or replace cen-tralized wastewater treatment facilities. In that same period less than $500 million has gone to decentral-ized treatment projects. In other words, less than 1/2 of one percent has gone to support the 26% of the population not served by central sewer”.

The Bottom Line Moving Forward: With high hopes for success in changing the funding appropriations, more funds will go to states to administer to counties and cities. We as the Kansas Small Flows Association in conjunction with the Kanas Environmental Health Association need to be poised and ready to work with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in receiving and implementing grants to benefit our in-dustry. Stay tuned!!

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New Soil Application by Charlene Weiss

Anyone who has been to one of our Soils Workshops , or attended a conference where we discussed soil proper-ties, may remember a reference to the Web Soil Survey. Web Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and infor-mation produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conserva-tion Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. You could also access this data on a smartphone and know what soil type you were standing on. Awesome, right! Well after doing some research for a KSFA mem-ber, I think I have come across a resource that might even be better! Since the soils application for Android phones is no longer supported, I came across the Soil Web, which is an app developed by the California Soil Resource Lab at UC Davis and UC-ANR in collabora-tion with the USDA Natural Resources Conserva-tion Service. The interactive map allows you to explore USDA-NCSS soil survey data for locations throughout most of the U.S. It is compatible with smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. The web site that I now have under my favorites on my desktop computer and smartphone is: http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/gmap/. 1) Go to Menu->Zoom To Location. You can use your current location or type in an address; city & state; zip

code; etc. Obviously the more detailed you can be with the information you enter, the quicker you get to the location where you want. Once you have located the tract or parcel that you want, go to step 2).

2) Click on the map to identify "map units", which are delineated by the yellow lines. You can click on the map unit num-ber or anywhere on the parcel that you want. This will bring up the soil series name and expandable category headings to view the map unit data and the map unit composition.

3) If you click on the map unit name, there is information at the top of the bar that says “soil series description”. Click

on the description and you will see a typical pedon of that soil series. There is also a “map settings” button under the Menu tab. You can look at the satellite image, the road map or a hybrid. If you are having difficulty lo-cating your area of interest, I have found that the road map gets you in a close proximity especially if your lo-cation data is fairly vague. Once you find the area/parcel that you want, then switch the map settings to hybrid and you will see the satellite image, the road names and the soil map units.

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Many Thanks

to our “Sunflower” Sponsors!!

They provide support

to the association all year.

Please tell them thanks for the Help!

Advanced Drainage Systems

Allied Concrete Products

Bio-Microbics, Inc.

Clearstream Wastewater Systems, Inc.

Ecological Tanks, Inc.

Hodes & Sutter, Inc.

Infiltrator Systems, Inc.

Residential Sewage Treatment Company

Trigard Concrete/Hoot Systems

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Local Representative:

Hodes & Sutter, Inc.

10614 Summit

Lenexa, KS 66215

Brian Hodes

brian@hodesandsutter.com

Cell: 913-451-7472

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Info-Flo Kansas Small Flows Association 1601 East Peoria, #302

Paola, Kansas 66071

Board of Directors: Officers:

Clem Karlin CK Earthworks, LLC Hays, KS

President 785-623-1188

Tod Hettenbach Kansas Pumping Service, Inc. Chapman, KS

President Elect 785-479-7138

Sheryl Ervin Bio-Microbics, Inc. Shawnee, KS

Treasurer 913-422-0707

Directors:

Arland Stephens Clarence Frazier John Versusse

Zack Millbern Mark Shepard Ron Vincent

Jessi Wood Ann D’Alfonso (ex-officio)

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