Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Environmental & Water Resources Institute Congress will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the heart of downtown.
If water engineering is your passion, you will fall in love with Milwaukee. The Milwaukee region is the home to over 200 water technology businesses, and is a hot-bed economic development organizations.
In early spring of 1993, hospitals and schools in Milwaukee reported staffing issues to the city’s Department of Public Health when large numbers of nurses and teachers called out sick. This massive outbreak was caused by cryptosporidium, a massive contamination to the city's water supply causing over 403,000 residents to become sick. To date, the Milwaukee cryptosporidiosis outbreak is the largest epidemic of waterborne disease reported in U.S. history. Since 1993, Milwaukee Water Works (MWW), with the endorsement of the Mayor and Common Council, in ongoing investment has committed $417 million in its infrastructure to ensure high-quality water.
Today, Milwaukee is very proud of their water, because it is some of the highest quality in the nation. They have an effective, multiple-barrier process of source water protection, ozone disinfection, chlorine disinfection, biologically active filtration, and continuous water quality monitoring. Milwaukee’s drinking water quality meets or exceeds all Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and EPA standards. The water utility’s water quality monitoring program tests for many more illness-causing pathogens and contaminants than are required by the EPA. In fact, the utility now tests source and treated water for more than 500 contaminants. Their inter-agency collaboration also continues, and will continue, in order to promote collaboration in protecting public health.