Garver's Dr. Michael Watts publishes article, presents at IOA and IUVA World Congress

Garver has hired Dr. Michael Watts as Water Team senior process engineer to serve in our Water Design Center. Michael is proficient in cutting-edge physical-chemical water and wastewater treatment. His experience includes training and supervising future engineers in their research and coursework on water treatment unit process and plant design, water conveyance, water reclamation, and publication in respected journals for water treatment engineering and environmental science.

Michael earned both his Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina and Duke University, respectively. He holds his professional engineering license in Florida, where he taught at engineering at Florida State University. Michael is an active member of the American Water Works Association, the Association of Environmental Engineering Scientists and Professors, the International Ultraviolet Association, and the Water Environment Federation.

He has published articles in multiple peer-reviewed journals, the most recent of which is the current edition of Environmental Technology. The article, entitled “A bench-scale assessment of ozone pre-treatments for landfill leachates,” discusses how low doses of dissolved ozone (less than the instantaneous ozone demand) were applied to stabilized landfill leachate (a.k.a. ‘garbage juice’) prior to anaerobic biological treatment (bench-scale laboratory testing). The concentrations of three organic micropollutants common to landfill leachates were monitored through both treatment processes. Significant improvement to the rate of biodegradation of a known endocrine disrupting compound, ethinyl estradiol, was observed in ozone pre-treated leachates vs. leachates that did not receive pre-oxidation. This work has implications for design of small-footprint, advanced chemical-biological water reclamation processes for on-site treatment of landfill leachates.

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Michael has given presentations and lectures at various conferences and for a variety of organizations. He’ll be presenting next week in Las Vegas at the 2013 World Congress of the International Ultraviolet Association and the International Ozone Association. If you plan on attending the conference, we’ll hope you’ll stop in to meet Michael and hear him discuss “O3 and O3/H2O2 Oxidation of Piroxicam, Ketoprofen, and Naproxen in Surface Waters” on Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 11:30 a.m.

 

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