Billed as the largest annual water quality conference and exhibition in the world, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) is gearing up to welcome an expected 18,000 attendees from more than 70 countries to its 84th annual WEFTEC, Oct. 15-19, 2011, in the Los Angeles Convention Center. The five-day event features 27 workshops, 114 technical sessions, more than 800 presentations and posters, eight offsite facility tours, and a foot-and-leg-numbing 290,000 square feet of exhibition space.

Rita Colwell, Ph.D., a professor from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate, and a world-renowned expert on waterborne diseases, will deliver the technical keynote address during the opening general session of WEFTEC 2011. Colwell has made exceptional contributions to control the spread of cholera, a waterborne pathogen that infects 3 to 5 million people and leads to an estimated 120,000 deaths each year. Through her research, innovations, and decades of scientific leadership, she has defined our current understanding of the ecology of infectious diseases and developed the use of advanced technologies to halt their spread. Her work has established the basis for environmental and infectious disease risk assessment used around the world. Colwell is expected to share her insights into the necessity of clean water and sanitation to the preservation of public health.

Following Colwell will be a special presentation from Doc Hendley, founder and president of Wine To Water, a non-profit aid organization focused on providing clean water to needy people around the world. In 2003, Hendley dreamed up the concept of the organization while bartending and playing music in nightclubs around Raleigh, N.C. In February 2004, the first fundraiser was held and by August of that same year Hendley was living in Darfur, Sudan, installing water systems for victims of government-supported genocide. When Hendley returned home in August 2005, the haunting memories of what he had seen in Darfur drove him to continue building the aid group. In 2007, after working two jobs and volunteering his time for more than three years, Wine To Water became an official 501 (c) (3) organization.

The opening general session also will feature 2010-2011 WEF President Jeanette Brown, as well as recognition of the 2011 WEF Excellence Award recipients and the 2011 Stockholm Junior Water Prize winners.

Come to learn
WEFTEC offers attendees as many as 1.2 Continuing Education Credits and 16.5 Professional Development Hours. Twelve tracks of continuous education focus on the following:

• emerging research and innovation;
• industrial issues and treatment technology;
• municipal wastewater treatment process and design;
• facility operations;
• residuals and biosolids management;
• collection systems;
• stormwater management;
• watershed resources management and sustainability;
• utility management;
• water reclamation and reuse;
• future insights, global issues, and sustainability; and
• government affairs/exhibitor forum.

Offsite facility tours on Oct. 17, 18, and 19 provide attendees a firsthand look at water quality initiatives in the Los Angeles area. Scheduled tours include the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts' Joint Water Pollution Control Plant; a Los Angeles sewer tour – Discovering what lies beneath; city of Los Angeles' Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant; Orange County Sanitation District's Reclamation Plant #1 and Orange County Water District's Groundwater Replenishment System Advance Water Purification Facility; city of Santa Monica's Charnock Well Field Restoration Project; city of Los Angeles' Hyperion Treatment Plant; green stormwater infrastructure; and West Basin Municipal Water District's Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility. Each facility tour costs $50, in addition to the regular conference registration.

Conference, exhibition, registration, and lodging information is available online at www.weftec.org