Wider Horizons

Topics reported on in this month's column include: developers in the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico are working on specific anion nanoengineered sorbents (SANS) that could reduce the cost of removing arsenic from drinking water; the Nessie curve, originally developed by the South Australia Water Corporation, describes how to assess physical assets and financial needs for rehabilitation or replacement of existing infrastructure and the use of various scenarios for replacement strategies and financing; the AWWA Research Foundation's budget has steadily increased over the past three years due to a growing awareness on the part of utility managers that progress will only come through research of specific utility issues; and, more utilities are seeing the benefits of the past two decades of research on their bottom line because in many areas research pays for itself in the first year.