From The Editor | August 25, 2014

Readers' Choice: Top 10 Water Online Podcasts

At ACE14, Water Online’s “Todd and Todd” radio host duo—Todd Schnick and Todd Youngblood— sat down with over 50 experts from across the water industry.  Everyone from the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore to the executive director of the Water Research Foundation spoke to Water Online about the hottest trends and biggest challenges in water.  Since June our team has been sharing that content with you, our readers, on our website and on social media via @WaterOnline, @LauraOnWater, and @KevinOnWater and the Water Online LinkedIn group.  You’ve read and shared your favorites and we’ve been paying attention.  Here are the Top 10 Water Online Radio interviews from ACE14 based on reader traffic. 

Utilizing low-pressure, low-energy membrane technology, Oasys Water is setting out to change the way people think about desalination.  Competing technologies — including evaporation and reverse osmosis (RO) schemes — are inherently energy-intensive, and therefore cost-intensive.  In this Water Online Radio interview, Lisa Marchewka, VP of strategy and marketing for Oasys, explains how forward osmosis shifts that paradigm. 

Tom Siller, global product manager with handheld instruments for Hach, speaks to Water Online radio about the company’s new SL-1000 portable parallel analyzer ( PPA).  The PPA combines an electrochemistry meter and a colorimeter into one and was designed to be extremely simple to use. 

In areas with an abundance of water, leak detection isn’t always made a priority.  But every utility should be working to reduce non-revenue water, says Marc Bracken, vice president and general manager of Echologics. 

In a Water Online Radio first, a U.S ambassador is interviewed by Todd and Todd.  U.S. Ambassador to Singapore Kirk Wager flew in to talk economic opportunities between the U.S. and Southeast Asia.  On his agenda: convincing U.S. companies to bring their water technologies abroad. 

Rob Renner, executive director of the Water Research Foundation (WRF), talks with Water Online about the impacts of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) over the past 40 years and what is on the horizon for the drinking water sector. 

As water resources dwindle, more and more focus turns to desalination technologies.  In this interview with Water Online Radio, Harland Pond and Thomas Morrison of Grundfos talk about the company’s commitment to innovation and their quest to solve the world’s water problems. 

Two prestigious universities have come together to tackle water loss.  King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi Arabia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), created an innovative in-pipe leak detection robot, which uses pressure gradients to identify leaks.  The detector — which operates autonomously — can sense leaks at any angle around the circumference of the pipe. 

Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPPCs), levels of lead and a host of viruses are all on the regulatory horizon for water quality managers, says Lynda Eisenmann with Palintest, the water and environmental analysis equipment manufacturer

As John Dyson of Severn Trent explains in this Water Online Radio interview, chromium-6, arsenic removal, nitrates and the treatment of other organics are all becoming more prevalent as the drought in the West drives municipalities to tap into non-traditional water sources.