Welcome everyone, to our first PARC podcast. My name is Blair Corning. I work at South Platte Renew with my colleague, Jamie Sepulco. Jamie, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience here?

Thank you, Blair. I am Jamie Sifolko. I'm the deputy Director of engineering here at South Platte Renew and very excited to be invited to be a co host of the Park Cast. It is an honor to be to be sitting next to you, Blake.

Likewise, I think. So we're here to talk about Park Cast. We're going to shoot some episodes live from the conference floor here at WebTech in New Orleans. And then our plan is to roll out episodes about every month or so, interviewing people who have projects in PARC or have done research, have different things park related is a plan. Is that right?

That is right. So if we've completed a pilot or if we have data to share, we really want to make sure that we're highlighting all the great things that PARC is doing and hoping that our viewers and our listeners can learn something too. And if they want to get involved in PARC or more, that they have the opportunity to do so too.

Yeah, and there's gonna be a lot of data, a lot of analysis, a lot of that that, you know, researchers, scientists, engineers look at, but this we're hoping to make accessible to the general audience about Parks. There's a lot of cool stuff going on. There's a lot of science being done, a lot of. A lot of discoveries and work being done in the industry that is good to get out to the people because it's really cutting edge.

Absolutely. So if people can look out, probably once a month, we'll have. We'll be dropping episodes to make sure that people can understand all the great things park doing. Park cast 2024. It's been a great time at WEFT Tech, and again, if you want to be part of park or if you want to to get on this podcast, please visit our website, South Plat Renew. And we'd love to get you, get you on the podcast. Yeah, let's do it.

Good luck to us.

Yeah, we'll need it.

Well, welcome, everyone. Welcome, Peter, to Park Cast. We are here to talk about park, which I want you to talk about mostly because you got the origin story of. So why don't you take us through? Well, let me start out by saying we're here at WebTech in New Orleans at the annual Web Tech conference, and we're at the park booth alive on the showroom floor. That's why it's so Loud. And that's why it's so chaotic. But I'm glad you're able to stop by and tell us about park the origin story. How about that?

Well, thank you, Blair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the podcast and thank you so much for leading this podcast and helping us get some of the information out on parc, which really is this concept that I'm just so thrilled and excited about for South Platte Renew. And how it all started actually was. It goes way back about five years ago. I was completing my executive MBA at the University of Denver and I was sitting in a class on design thinking and marketing and we were talking about Blue Ocean strategy, which is that idea that don't compete in your existing market, create a new market. And I was like, how do we do that for a public sector wastewater utility? How do we innovate in a way that we end up with a new market that's different than what we always do because we're public sector? And so I came back to staff and a few of us got together and over the course of a couple years started to figure out, what does it look like, what does it. How can we innovate this industry differently than what's always done? And through the course of the last five years, there's been this organic development and growth of PARC as an overall concept, which is bigger than just infrastructure or studies. It's how we are. It's a way of being for South Platte Renew that's integrated into who we are.

Yeah. So maybe Pilot and Research Center. That's what PARK stands for. Tell us a little bit about each piece, the physical and the programmatic piece of parc. Give the audience an overview of the whole program.

Yeah, so when we were thinking about this, initially there was the physical infrastructure aspect of this, and then there was the more the governance model around it and the physical infrastructure aspect. The real point of that is to ease, to make it easy for technologies to be able to hook into our systems at South Platte Renew so that we don't spend months trying to figure out how to hook up a pilot trailer or something. So we built our first liquid site was completed, I believe, in mid 2023. And when we were talking about the physical infrastructure, I kept going back to Field of Dreams where he says, build it and they will come.

I love that movie. I love that. It makes me cry every time, you.

Know, me too, actually. Yeah, I agree with that. And so we built it ahead with the idea that if we have, if we take away that pain point of trying to hook up and connect in, then people will more readily want to work with us and develop innovative ideas because it's easy to connect. So that's the physical infrastructure side and so we have a liquid site and then there's multiple other sites that are either in some form of development, there's a GAS site, there's a solid site that's being expanded. But then the flip side of it was more this. You know, how do we governance it and how does it, how does it interface or how does it integrate into our organization as a whole? Yeah, because, you know, a lot of times innovation in organizations is, you know, this small group of people, advanced degrees, doing really, really detailed and cutting edge research, but it doesn't necessarily lend itself to the rest of the organization. It's almost this group that's by itself itself, that interfaces with the rest of the organization when it wants to. What PARC does at South Platte renew is everybody's integrating into it. So everybody in the organization are part of this innovation approach and they have a stake in it, they have a connection to it, and that makes them part of what makes it successful.

Yeah. How is the organization taken to that? I mean, if public utility employees are generally risk averse or you know, kind of in a mold to. Have you seen them break out of that mold or embrace it?

Yeah, I think, I think the cool thing about it is it's, it's exciting, it's innovative and people want to have that kind of purpose in their career and this gives them a way to, you know, do their, do their day to day job, which is required because our fundamental job is to treat wastewater for our customers. But we can do that while at the same time creating careers for people and creating this type of purpose and pride that people can have in the work that they do because they're doing exciting leading edge things while they're also taking care of the day to day of their jobs.

Yeah. Let's talk about the park boot that we're in a little bit. We've rearranged it for the podcast, but you know, it's talk about the booth and why the park booth and what we're accomplishing with the booth here.

Yeah, this is pretty cool.

That is cool. Yeah. A lot of traffic, a lot of buzz.

Yeah. You know, I think the idea with the park booth is also integrated into the different concept of park, which is that we want to cast a wide net. So I think we want to look at it like a portfolio of projects, realizing that if we have 25 projects as part of a portfolio of projects. 23 of them may not get us what we need, but the other two might carry the whole portfolio and get us the silver bullet that we need for solving our long term goals. And so when you think about, you know, why would the residents that we serve, why would they want us to do this kind of thing? It's really about long term, looking long term to save them money and their rates and fees by finding the solutions before we're up against the deadline where we don't have any choice.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's why I love the business angle that you bring or that brought about Park. You know, you hear about incubators and other industries and research centers and taking that into this public utilities world that is risk averse and very set in their ways is. It's fun to watch. It really is fun to watch.

Yeah. I mean, the number of comments that I've received on the floor about, wait a minute, you guys have a booth, You're a utility, you don't have booths. And yeah, we have a booth because we're trying to provide an opportunity for all these, you know, technology providers and vendors and consultants and universities and students to have a testing ground, which is our facility. And then we build these partnerships and then they get to advance the industry as a whole and we get to solve our challenges and problems that we have across the entire organization.

Well, great. Well, this has been awesome. Thanks for, thanks for being here. Thanks for giving us a little overview of the park facility and the park project in general. Did you have any leave behind anything you wanted to leave the listeners with about park or anything else?

Well, I think the leave behind is that if you're interested in partnering with us, please contact us. We are, like I said, we want to advance all aspects of our industry, whether it's physical infrastructure or software or it's leadership development tools, things like that. It's not just treatment, it's a broad reach. And then ultimately the leave behind is that everybody can be part of innovation. And when you bring everybody into innovation, into your organization, you just get way more rich solutions.

Yeah.

And it makes for a fun place to work.

Yeah, well, yeah, you got that right. Thanks for being here today and we appreciate your insights.

Thank you, Blair. Appreciate the interview.

Hi, Anna. Thank you so much for being on the Park Cast. This is our official unveiling of Park Cast. If you could please introduce yourself and just please tell the people listening your role on Park.

Sure. Thanks, Jamie. So my name is Anna Schrader. I'm one of the engineering supervisors at South Pau and I have since 2019 we've worked and I've led the process of developing and building parks. So from a conceptual idea that we had of like we want to be able to test all these different technologies and my role was helping bringing those sky, you know, really high level ideas down into something tangible. And we went through a design construction and now in 2024 we are running. So now I oversee that program and most of the pilots too.

That is a lot.

That is a lot. You know, from working at South Platte, I do know that we have a lot going on as far as the pilot and research center. It's very exciting. Some of the things that are coming out of this program. Could you tell us some of your favorite things to favorite research projects that we've been working on?

Ooh, that's a great question. I think some of the top ones are for actually a few years now we've worked with a local business in our service or really close to us actually for they are a whiskey distillery and we've been taking their waste carbon and just injecting it into one of our processes and we've been wanting to try to do passive denitrification. So really the whole goal was recycling a waste product into something we could use. And it's been, it was actually really successful. So that's awesome. That's cool. Like really, you know, the circular economy thing that's, that's we're trying to do. So that was, that's one of them. And then we also last, I guess this spring hosted the Direct Portable Reuse pilots from Colorado School of Mines. And that was kind of our first big pilot at parc. And it was a really good success. It was like, you know, startup was very easy and we got really good data which was really helpful for the state of Colorado trying to move to dpr. And I think the other one is we just got our. So we have a biogas upgraded system where we tapped into this process which cleans our biogas to natural, our renewable natural gas standards. And we put a tap in and now we can pull gas off of that and send it for testing. And we've been working with NREL and the University of Virginia to do some methane testing that I can't explain to you but the PhD people who are on this project are very excited about it. So we're very excited.

That is amazing. So it sounds again there is, you know, water, solids and now gas that we can test on. And that we can really elevate all that type of research. So what would you say to people listening that would want to get involved in park or maybe be involved with some of this research?

Yeah. So the best thing and the easiest thing would be to email us, send us an email, and that would be at spr.parkenglewoodco.gov Nice. And really, we just want to set up and have a conversation to. To talk about what people are working on, what they want to work on, what they could bring, what we could partner on, and then just kind of take it from what that discussion kind of brings. So we're really open to all different sorts of technologies, and that's working with universities, vendors, consultants, other utilities, obviously the local universities. But really we aren't looking to kick anyone out. We're very open and excited to work with a bunch of different people right now. So I would say the barrier of entry is very low. Just start a conversation and. Yeah, we'd love to chat. So.

Great. So hopefully, again, people listening, definitely contact Anna.

It's on our website. So go to our public website. That's where all the email is available as well, in a form to fill out.

So can you just tell us one thing you're really excited about when it comes to parc? Just one of your favorite things, something you're really looking forward to.

I think my favorite part of PARC is like, the general true partnership and collaboration. So when you work on project teams and everyone's really excited and invested and passionate about trying to solve maybe a new problem or there's a new challenge to overcome, that's really exciting to be a part of. It's contagious. You want to be a part of that and you want to, like, seek that solution. And I think that's something that PARC is really. It really pulls kind of like a key part of the culture is that collaborative partnership and, like, teamwork kind of sense.

Well, thank you, Anna. We are very excited to see all the research that's going to come out of PARC and all the great things that you're going to do. So thanks so much for taking the time.

Thanks, Jamie.

All right, Ray, thank you so much for being here for our first PARC cast. We're very excited to hear hear from you. Get your contractor perspective. For the people out there that don't know you, could you just introduce yourself and really what your role was on the project?

Yeah. Awesome. Well, first and foremost, thank you guys for having me, and thank you for helping PCL to be on this podcast. But we're very Excited. My name is Ray Torjohn. I was a project manager for PCL Construction. Very exciting project. So I'll hand it back to you.

Wonderful. Yeah. So it was a cmgc, or construction manager, general contractor project, which some people are familiar with. So alternative delivery. Can you just kind of tell the people how that project went, some of the constructability and some of the challenge you faced with actually building Park?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think first and foremost, I think we were very excited to do the project. And then once we started really appealing back at it, we saw the complexity. And that's why we were very excited that it was a CMGC approach because we were able to take it step by step, really dive into the details as far as how are we going to tie into the plant, what are we going to have to do with Mopo is making sure that we kept your plant running and had no disruptions. And the footprint that we actually had was a very unique footprint. It was on the back of the plant. And we were very curious, how many existing utilities are we going to come across? Right. So we did a lot of upfront leg work, very collaborative efforts between us, Jacobs, and, you know, obviously South Platte. And I think overall the end result was great.

Absolutely. If people haven't seen the park site, it is a very nice looking, you know, setup with all the hookups, the nice asphalt. It really is a great, you know, centerpiece of what, you know, really park is and really welcoming for any type of people that want to come and bring pilot research to park.

Absolutely.

Can you tell us a little bit more, again, just some of the challenges you face during construction and how you overcame those challenges?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll start with tie ins. Right. We definitely wanted to be very, you know, the overall goal. Right. Get some samples from the front of the plant, middle of the plant, all the way to the end of the plant. And the challenges were this was old infrastructure, so this wasn't thought out when this plant was constructed years back. So we had to tie into certain locations that there was really no isolation. So we had to get very creative, coordinate with planned operations in order to understand when were our low flows, where were our best opportunity windows. And tying into, you know, some of the locations had some very tight challenges that it was go time. So the CMAR approach or the CMGC approach in this case was very vital. And I believe just having an engineer also that was very flexible and an owner that was very flexible and understanding of some of these challenges really made the biggest difference. And I think that's when that collaborative nature really came into play and you mentioned it. It's a beautiful looking project and I think that's a result of that collaboration. At the end of the day, what we ended up putting out as an end product was just great.

That's great to hear. Again, we really enjoy working with pcl. We've had a really great experience working with you. Can you just tell the people listening how it has been working on just park and South Platte in general?

Oh, it's been awesome. And I'll be honest with you guys, you guys have a really solid team, very open minded, very progressive. And you can tell just by having a project like this on your guys location that brings in different people to come and pilot just and bring out new technology. Just goes to show and is a perfect example of what you guys represent not only for park and not only for South Platte, but for the industry as a whole.

Have you ever seen a project like this before?

I have not. This is my first one.

This is your first?

Yeah, this was the first very unique one. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm very excited to be the project manager on that job.

So it's pretty cool.

Yep. You will live in infamy on this forever.

Yeah, we gotta put that name on that black.

Well, thank you so much for being here, Ray. It's been really great working with you and really excited to see all the things that PARC comes up with.

Awesome. Well, thank you for having me.

All right, welcome back everyone. I'm Blair Corning, host of the or half host of the park podcast. I'm here with Allegra de Silva from Brown and Caldwell. Thanks for being here, Allegra.

Really happy to be here.

Well, maybe introduce yourself to the viewers, the listeners, and tell us a little bit about your connection with parc.

Thanks, Blair. Yeah, so I am the director of Research and Innovation for Brown and Caldwell and I'm also in the state in your service area. So I'm also a customer and just really appreciate the work that everybody at South Platte renew does. And our partnership at PARC is around a huge range of research questions that we're working on together to try to improve the wastewater process, to really be more protective of the environment and public health. And so we get to do all kinds of things together. And many of my colleagues. So there's a whole range of things we're working on together.

Yeah, maybe. Can you give some examples of your favorites? I know there's too many to name. I'm not sure how Many total partnerships the park program has. But I know there's been some cool ones with Brown and Caldwell and the research foundation. So maybe highlight a couple of your favorites.

Yeah, yeah. What I find so impressive about what PARC has already been able to do is you have projects that touch the whole wastewater cycle and even upstream. And so as some examples, one of the projects we're working with you on at the very beginning of the whole process is in the collection system. And we're using machine learning tools to try to look at whether we can predict PFAS slugs coming into the collection system and looking at both online data and grab samples and using really advanced analytical techniques to dig into those data sets and see what patterns can we find and how could that change how you do sampling regimes, maybe even operate down the line? So that's a really fun project. Way upstream.

I've heard of that one called. That's the fingerprinting, right. PFAS fingerprint. Trying to get a fingerprint of PFAS per industry, right?

Yes. We're doing two things there. We're looking at huge libraries of pfas fingerprints, like 20,000 different samples taken globally and comparing your samples against that library to see if we can make predictions of where the PFAS is coming from. What, whether it's a totally domestic source or an industrial discharge that has a certain fingerprint. So that's one question that's being probed with the project, and the other is can we use your online sensors to find correlations to when there might be a discharge of PFAS or something else, you know, other constituents that might impact the process? So, yeah, it's a big data project and you all are really taking advantage of the investment you've made in trying to find sources of PFAS to serve the industry and answer some questions more broadly.

Yeah, I think it could be a game changer industry wide if it works out, you know, to identify pfas, because that's PFAS is a huge issue and finding out where it's coming from so you can stop it is huge. What about some other projects that you've been working on? What's your other favorite? It's like picking kids.

Picking kids. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just say one more thing. On the PFAS project, what we think the real big contribution will be in that project is a little outside your domain and indirect potable reuse, where if we can get really good at understanding what changes in the collection system, water quality mean for what's coming into the plant, we can use that to protect sewer sheds that are doing direct portable reuse. So other utilities around the country, and that's an example of where the investment you're making has these ripple effects to utilities that you don't directly touch but that need the answers. So. So some really neat impacts there. Then when we get inside the plant, we're working together on some things around intensifying the nutrient reduction process with pdna. And that's a Water Research foundation project as well. The first one was two that we.

Talked about PDNA being maybe. What's that?

It's an acronym for a particular process within nutrient removal and I'm forgetting the acronym.

That's all right, that's all right.

But we're looking at how we can do more with the same process around nutrient removal. And then with your phosphorus removal specifically, you can have problems on side streams with struvite formation and really gunking up the works. And so we're doing a chemical modeling study with you all as well around struvite control. And so also those will have great ripple effects for other utilities. And then you helped us on a project that partnered a bunch of utilities to share data around energy improvements when you make upgrades. And so that was also a Rauder Research foundation project to quantify energy improvements and come up with a framework that is reproducible and allows better accounting for complying with grants and for carbon credits and all sorts of things. So we work lots of different elements there.

It's amazing. All these are leading edge, you know, big topics in the industry. PFAs, struvite, energy, nutrients. I mean, those are all what every, most every plant cares about. So it's great that Brown and Caldwell and the park project is focusing on them and makes some headway in research.

Absolutely, yeah. Really important societal impacts and contributions to our footprint and how our footprint as a community and as a sector. So we really appreciate how the team at PARC thinks beyond thinks of what is needed for our immediate community, our neighborhoods, but also how to use this investment for the environment at large and tackle some of these bigger questions around climate impact and public health and doing more with the existing infrastructure as we have, you know, aging infrastructure and also workforce issues. How do we get at things using being more efficient with people, people's time and with the money that you've already invested.

Yeah. One thing I like about PARC is it involves so many people, lab people, pre treatment, engineering operations, what's been, you know, so I like to see them screwing around, excited about research because. And being on the leading edge of things. What's been your experience working within the PARC framework? How is, how have you. What's been your experience with that?

Yeah, what I love about partnering is you've got a group at PARC that starts. The initial response is, yes, we're going to figure out how to do this and let me figure out all the pieces. You're a very proactive organization and always again, thinking beyond the immediate questions that you have at hand to optimize your process and keep it going and invest in your capital, upgrades and all that. Your instinct as a group is to say yes to these broader questions and figure out how to be supportive and make it happen. So really the people that I get to work with at PARC are what makes it happen. That attitude of collaboration and being a forward thinker in the industry is everything. And so I think I'm excited to see what you all do with park over the years and see what this becomes, because you've got a really great test bed, both physically on site, but also just with your thinking around partnering on off site projects and with partners around the globe. You have a lot of power in that model.

I've described it before as a wastewater test kitchen. You know, watch that show with the test kitchen of wastewater, see what products work.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, thanks for being here, Allegra, and thanks for all the work you've been doing. Hopefully we'll be interacting on a lot more research projects. There's always more stuff to discover and learn. And thanks for what you're doing for the industry and thanks for stopping by today.

Likewise. It's been a lot of fun.

All right, so, Blair, we just completed our first round of opening podcasts for Park.

Yes, we did.

And launched the new park podcast. So as the lead interviewer of Park Podcast, what do you think?

I love it. I love it. It was a little scary. We had to rearrange the booth. We had to find some guests who were involved in park and clear things up. I loved it. It was created a commotion in the aisle, which I always loved. You know, it did, didn't it, when people gather around and say what is going on over there? And no, I think that it was a great way to get the message out. Sometimes in our industry, communication is not what we think about first, but this puts it out there in a way that I think people can understand it and really touch it.

Yeah. And so your co host interviewer was Jamie Sifoco. Yes. How do you think Jamie did?

I think Jamie is a natural. I think she was built for the job of co host. I think her style and her manner brings the guests in and makes them feel welcome and really gets them to open up. So I'm all for Jamie for co host, right?

Yeah. Jamie, you want to come in and wave to the camera? We're completing. See, there's Jamie.

Thanks for having me.

Well, I'm really thrilled with how this is, how this is taking off, and I just want to express my appreciation for all the work you do to make these podcasts work and make this happen and any closing leave behinds that you'd like to provide.

You know, I would say the innovation is great. I would say what I've seen from park and the podcast and just everything with park is just thinking differently, thinking outside the box. And I'm learning how much fun that is to do. You know, when you. When you turn things on their head a little or don't. Don't go in the exact way that everyone else does it. And so I see that throughout park and throughout this podcast of being a little different. And I think it's great. I think it's good to be different. So I would challenge people to just go for it and take a chance.

Awesome. Well said. Thanks, Blair.

Right on, Peter.