Wednesday, December 15, 2015 found Wastewater 101, LLC in Kokomo at the wastewater treatment facility discussing the Basics of Activated Sludge for an 8-hour technical session.  This course centers around what is needed for the activated sludge system to remain stable and what variables to look out for including: collection system, industrial pretreatment, stormwater, primary treatment and in-plant recycle flows.  We also discussed, the microorganisms (bacteria, protozoa/metazoa), actual operations and monitoring tests as well as charting and data entering.  However, I soon realized they could be teaching me a few things regarding documentation and trend charting.  When talking about documentation, calculating wasting/return rates, charting, and comparing information I soon discovered they were well ahead of the curve, have been doing it for years and on the computer that is available (and utilized) by operations as well as supervision.  Supervision sets a set of maximum and minimum variables and the operators make the adjustments within those parameters.  Only if they need to go outside of the parameters do they have to contact supervision for guidance.  One thing that really hit home from this session was when I asked at the end of the course what (other than candy) they each got out of the session was when one of the laboratory personnel said he was amazed by the amount of work, documentation and sample interpretation the operators actually did on a daily basis.  To me that and the fact that some students were taking notes means this class was a huge success.  Thank you Kokomo for allowing me to be part of your future.