Rural Water Association Utah

It's that time of year again for the Rural Water Association of Utah's conference in Saint George, Utah. The event will be the week of the 25th and will be held at the Dixie Center as usual and is a by appointment or invitation only conference and show.
Every year, the RWAU invites people from various walks of life that work or teach in the water field or train members of the association in the many aspects of water extraction, collection, storage, distribution, reclamation and treatment of our most precious resource.....water. This gives many members the ability to take advantage of required training that is needed to do their day-to-day jobs in regards to water. Much of this training is required by the state or federal government for state approval for distribution to the public and is required by the federal government for funding that may be needed on a specific project.

The groups of people that attend come from cities, towns, counties, state or even special services districts that account for most all of the water that is collected or extracted for public use. Whether that use is for potable use or for irrigation, the majority is managed and maintained by one of these groups. The only water that is not controlled by them is private water users that hold water shares through the state for personal use, for individual residential use, farming and or ranching, Industrial facility, or it can be for developments with a Home Owner Association with a shared resource for a collective community use. At any rate, in most instances if you are a member of the association you are trained to do various jobs that are needed to be done in this field.

Vendors are invited to set-up in the main hall for two of the five day event, to show off their wares to the attendees at the conference....that's where we come in. We will again this year be there showing some of the new and exciting tools we have in our "bag of goods" for these folks to do their jobs better and more efficient while also helping them save money. The savings can come from being more efficient or by purchasing a product that will do the same job only better and be more reliably in the long run.

One of the new and exciting items we will be showing off this year is our radio control units we have now from Weidmuller. These units are very flexible, cost efficient and are very easy to incorporate into an existing system. The other great thing is the fact that they can be powered by a solar source and has a built-in power regulator for that application. So you just add a solar panel that is rated for the unit, a bit of interconnection to existing controls, a little programming and away you go. These are especially great for remote tank locations where there are no power resources. But that is just one application and there are virtually hundreds of uses for this powerful, flexible yet cost friendly product. If you are there, come check them out at our booth. We will be in 405 as we always are. If you won't be there, you can always call or stop by the office for more information.

For some of you, we'll see you there.

Scott

This years Super Bowl

Whether you are a football fan or not, most of us watch the "biggest game of the year" either for the game or the commercials.  For those of us that were watching the Super Bowl last weekend, we were able to see just what happens when a power disturbance occurs and you are not prepared for it....the lights go out.

Right after we watched Jacoby Jones run a 108 yard kickoff return back for a touchdown the lights went out in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.  You would think that a company that builds some of the most prestigious cars on the planet would make sure that the stadium they put their name on was built and protected with the latest and greatest equipment money could buy, right?

I have been preaching about power quality and surge protection for years and yet we see that this can even effect what is now being called the "Blackout Bowl", and for good reason.  If the people in charge of this stadium would have installed surge protection equipment, the effects of the surge would have been minimized to a less severe event.  In fact, if the surge equipment would have been strategically installed at the right locations, they probably would not even noticed the effects of the power event and the game would have gone off without a hitch.  Instead, they experienced a 34 minute delay for breakers to be reset, for the power to be restored and for those stupid lights to warm back up so they would be at full brightness for the game to proceed.

Surge Protection equipment works when installed correctly, applied correctly and located in the right place.  That said, I cannot think of a home, business, factory, hospital, school or even sports arena that would not benefit from the installation of SPD's.  Think about it people, companies spent millions to advertise during the Super Bowl to promote their goods, we had 34 minutes of FREE advertising about the issues of power quality, the adverse effects of a spike or surge and what we should be doing about it.

What the kids said in the 90's.....WORD

Scott