Artificial intelligence is spreading across every area of our lives, from ride-sharing apps to spam filters to smart personal assistants. In the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has also seeped into the wastewater industry in the form of automated defect coding. AI promises major benefits over traditional operator inspection, mostly in the form of lower error rates and faster inspection times.

America’s drinking water infrastructure is getting a D, but it’s not something we can afford. From a wide lens, the reason our national drinking water infrastructure is failing is simple: It’s old and poorly maintained. But narrow the focus, and the explanation behind the failing grade is more complicated.

Upgrading your sewer inspection equipment can be a boon to your long-term productivity, but even the savviest operators need extra time to get up to speed on new tools. Quickview airHD is designed to be durable and user-friendly, so you’ll get the most out of your zoom camera if you build good habits at the start.

Many municipalities say they want a sewer crawler to last 10 years, but few put in the work to make that happen. Modern sewer inspection systems are highly-engineered equipment that require specialized care. You don’t let just anyone work on your jetter truck, so why take a casual approach to operating and caring for your crawler?

Many wastewater system managers focus on pipelines. But manholes can be an even greater source of problems, in some extreme cases contributing up to 90% of inflow and infiltration in a system. And as they’re easier to access, manholes are generally less expensive to fix. To repair them though, they must be inspected.

Though California’s most recent drought may have officially ended in early March, that doesn’t mean the City of Angels is out of the woods. Currently, Los Angeles relies on a variety of sources for its potable water needs. Thirty-six percent of its supply comes from the Owens River, Mono Lake Basin and the Sierra Nevada Mountains via the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Another 52% of the city’s water comes from the Colorado River. Approximately 11% of the city’s water comes from groundwater. The remaining portion of the city’s supply, about 2%, comes from recycled water. But a new resolution from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s administration intends to change that: They’ve vowed to recycle all of the city’s wastewater by 2035.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the Envirosight WWETT booth in Indianapolis last month. We had a great time seeing our partners and customers and demonstrating our newest products.

Come see Envirosight at WWETT Booth 5224 Thursday through Saturday, February 21-23 in Indianapolis to test drive the latest technologies for sewer inspection.

A new year means new challenges; but, the new year also comes with new technology and workflows to meet those challenges. In order to keep up with the changing landscape of the wastewater industry, we identified a few trends to keep an eye on.