Career Panel Discussion for Young Professionals: Nebraska Water Environment Association
The Nebraska Water Environment Association invites all students and young professionals to join a zoom meeting where a panel of six professionals will answer questions concerning get a job in the Environmental Engineering industry, what to expect during ones first years on the job, and suggestions for being successful during those first years. All will be encouraged to submit questions at the start via the chat. This panel discussion is associated with the Great Plains Waste Management Conference, and students do not need to be registered for the conference to attend the zoom discussion.
The panel will include engineers from large and small consulting firms, a regulatory agency and municipality, an equipment vendor and academic, and representation from the Nebraska Board of Engineers and Architects.
Friday, April 2nd - Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Graduate Seminar
Andrew Pham
"Reducing Resource and Environmental Impacts in Water Resource Recovery Facilities: Design Practices for Small Communities"
Although water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) reduce environmental impacts related to water quality, their construction and operation result in negative environmental impacts in other categories. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology was used to evaluate and compare the inventory and environmental impacts of nine small WRRFs, most of which are serving slow growing or declining populations. From the analysis, three opportunities for impact mitigation were identified. The first suggested practice is to avoid significant overdesign by planning for no lower than a 75% capacity utilization. Other suggested practices were focused on the conveyance process element, namely, to minimize non-process facility area and to use polyvinyl chloride pipe instead of ductile iron pipe where possible.
Noelle Atieno Mware
"Effectiveness of alkaline stabilization in the reduction of antimicrobial resistance in beef cattle manure"
The antimicrobial resistant bacteria (ARB) and antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in livestock manure can pose a public health threat when they are introduced to the environment. Alkaline stabilization, an EPA approved method to reduce pathogens in biosolids from municipal wastewater treatment plants, was used in this study for treatment of beef cattle manure by lime addition. Alkaline stabilization reduced the absolute abundance of 16S rRNA, intI1, and ARGs by 1-2 orders of magnitude. There was a significant difference in tet(O), tet(X) and intI1 genes concentration between lime treated and no lime treated manure in the field study. The results from this study show that alkaline stabilization by lime addition can be used as a low-cost management practice to mitigate antibiotic resistance in beef cattle manure.
Durham School - Introduction to Construction Management for non-CM Majors CNST 498-005 (CNST 101)
The Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction is offering a new class titled ‘Introduction to Construction Management for non-CM Majors’ during the fall 2021 semester. This class will provide an overview of the construction industry, an understanding of the construction process and will prepare students to interact with construction professionals upon graduation. The class will be tailored to those students with an engineering and architecture background and will provide a solid foundation for anyone that interacts and collaborates with developers, project owners and contractors. Please see the attached flyer and reach out to assistant professor of practice Matt Barrows with any questions. mbarrows@unl.edu. The class is also a great fit for any student that is pursuing a minor in construction management.
