Clean Water Works

Send us Fan Mail
One careless shovel strike can turn a home project into a power outage or emergency situation, but it's easy to avoid! We sit down with Community Discharge Permit Program Specialist Rob Stoerkel to discuss Ohio 811—also known as OUPS, the “call before you dig” service that keeps homeowners, contractors, and field crews from hitting underground utility lines.

We also talk about the helpful systems that make this work, including Geographic Information System mapping, blueprint review, and coordination across multiple utilities and communities.

Send us Fan Mail
Pouring grease down the kitchen sink seems harmless until the day the drain slows to a crawl. Joe Boziak, a master plumber with decades in the trade, handles all of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District’s plumbing needs. We discuss fats, oils, and greases (FOG), how they can mess up your pipes, and why the old “just run hot water” advice can make the buildup worse. 

Home-plumbing maintenance consists of low-cost moves like saving cooking grease in a can, feeding a garbage disposal slowly with cold water running, and a quick test for toilet leaks. If you care about avoiding clogs—and keeping our sewer shared infrastructure running smooth, this episode is a must listen!

Send us Fan Mail
UPDATE: This episode was recorded on July 1, 2026. On July 21, Ohio EPA announced it will NOT finalize a proposed general permit for data centers. For additional information on this please visit Ohio EPA's website.
**********
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE seems to be everywhere. Whether we're using a chatbot, saving files to the cloud, or asking Google a question, we're relying on infrastructure that's largely invisible to us: data centers. As demand for AI and cloud computing accelerates, so do questions about the resources needed to support this digital economy—resources like water!  We were very interested in bringing some light to this hot-button topic in this, our first virtual episode, featuring a panel of guests from Central Ohio, Virginia, and Washington D.C. 
Dr. Landon Marston is an Associate Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research group looks at how and where water is used within the economy as well as the environmental consequences associated with economic production and consumption.  
John Newsome is Administrator of the Division of Water at Columbus Water and Power and has served with the city’s Department of Public Utilities since 2006. We’ve asked John to give CWP’s perspective on this emerging technology and water demands in Central Ohio, a national hub for data centers.  
Also with CWP, Sarah Bloom Anderson serves as Assistant Director of Policy and shares some information from the wastewater side: what happens to the water used to cool the servers in data centers.  
And Dr. Peter Grevatt is CEO of the Water Research Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization in Washington D.C. which funds and publishes research on the technology, operation, and management of drinking water, wastewater, water reuse, and stormwater systems. Peter discusses current research projects the WRF is supporting. 

Utility Perspectives on Data Center Survey
Dr. Marston's team at Virginia Tech, in partnership with WRF and the American Water Works Association, is conducting a survey among water and wastewater utilities regarding data centers. If you would like to participate, follow this link.

Send us Fan Mail
Concrete channels, buried creeks, and straightened streams simplified urban development but decades later we see the side effects: faster water, steeper channels, collapsing streambanks, and pollution.  Manager of Stormwater Design Kristen Buccier and Project Manager Denis Zaharija explain the benefits of more recent, holistic stream design methods. 

A stream is a living system seeking stability. Denis and Kristen discuss hydrology and hydraulics, how a stream's bends (or "meanders") dissipate energy, and how riffles and pools create habitat for fish and aquatic bugs. We also learn how “flashy” stormwater volumes can overwhelm streams and how designers work to bring resiliency back to those impacted waterways.

Send us Fan Mail
We talk with Mark Christie, Director of Cuyahoga County's Office of Emergency Management, about severe weather in Northeast Ohio, damage assessments, and how recovery decisions get made fast.

Mark gives some tips on preparing for hazards during thunderstorms, tornadoes, winter storms, and flooding that hits both rivers and basements, with info on ReadyNotify and the federal IPAWS system and a simple preparedness plan you can follow before the next storm hits.