ENE 483 Fall 2020

  Happy Friday! I know that life feels really hard right now - but remember, this to will end. In a few weeks, the semester will be over, the exam that you have been stressing over will be done, the chapter finished, and the book closed. In the end, it won't seem to matter. But what matters most is your health and well-being.  As such, I am going to try something I haven't done before and that is to set a 3-day grace period for both Assignment 3 in ENE 480 and MiniDesign 2 in ENE 483. The due dates won't officially change, but if you need extra time, you can have an additional 72 hrs, no questions asked. If you need more, just let me know. So here are the due dates: ENE 480 Assignment 3: Thursday, November 5, 2020 at 11:59 pm (grace period ends Nov. 8 at 11:59 pm) ENE 483 MiniDesign 2: Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020 at 11:59 pm (grace period ends Nov. 7 at 11:59 pm).  I hope this alleviates some of the stress. And Happy November 1st! Where did the year go? It's 5/6 ...

Happy Week 8!  I hope you are all doing well! Participation Week 8 question is due on Sunday at 11:59 pm. We will finish disinfection on Monday and begin a short unit on distribution systems and corrosion control. On Tuesday, our guest speaker will be Thomas Silsby, Superintendent and Chief Operator of the MSU Water Treatment Plant.  He will take us on a virtual tour of the plant.  As a prelude to this, I will post a lecture on arsenic, iron, and manganese removal. Class will begin at 10:30 am for the tour.  On Wednesday, the filtration assignment and tutorial 2 (scavenger hunt of green infrastructure) are due at 11:59 pm.  I hope some of you are enjoying the beautiful weather to complete the scavenger hunt. Again, if you are not living in the area, you can complete the scavenger hunt online using Google satellite or street view or using the links provided. If you want to explore your own area, let me know and I'll work with you. On Friday, we will begin the uni...

  Happy Saturday! What a beautiful Saturday to take a walk through campus!  I have to admit it was surreal - it was the first time I have ever been on campus on a football Saturday and there were so few people on campus. And then you could hear the recorded cheers, the band, the calls from the stadium - but the stands were empty, there were no tailgaters.  Only, the guy dressed as Sparty was there as usual! Enjoy the photos!

 Happy Week 7! I'll update with the weekly message in the next day or so, but here is the Weekly Participation is provided below. Congratulations!  We've made it half-way through the semester.  I know it has been hard and often isolating, but we've done it!  We will finish granular media filtration and will start disinfection on Monday. Tutorial 2 (water and wastewater infrastructure scavenger hunt) is posted in the Sedimentation and Filtration homework folders. The dropbox is located in the Tutorial folder. I will post Mini-Design 2 within the next few days. It will be due Wednesday, November 4.  The schedule for the next two weeks is below: Week of 10/18: Sunday 11:59 pm: Participation question is due Monday: Start disinfection unit Tuesday tutorial: If the weather cooperates, go on the scavenger hunt! We will not have a lecture/ guest speaker. Wednesday 11:59 pm: Homework on sedimentation is due Friday: Class as usual and next participation question will ...

Happy Saturday (I know, it's only Friday, but I plan to send this out on Friday), I hope all is well with all of you.  On Monday we will discuss filtration.  I decided to move filtration up so that we can continue to proceed through a conventional water treatment plant.  We'll then discuss disinfection.  After that we'll look at some of the more specialized treatment processes: ion exchange, adsorption, membrane filtration, and air stripping/aeration. We'll end the semester with a short unit looking at wastewater treatment, where we can apply many of the processes discussed all semester.  On Tuesday, Alison Lukens, MSU ENE graduate, will discuss water reclamation. Alison is presently working for Mead & Hunt. On Wednesday, we will continue with filtration. And as a reminder, your MiniDesign 1 report is due by 11:59 pm. The grading rubric is posted. There is no other homework due this coming week, although I will open the sedimentation homework (due October 21...

  @TheWheltonGroup Professor Andrew Whelton will be giving the UNM Center for Water and the Environment Distinguished Lecture @UNMengineering : Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 2 pm Michigan time (12pm Mountain Time) ZOOM: https:// unm.zoom.us/j/95608045485

Happy Sunday, Well we don't have a blue sky today, but at least it isn't raining (now)! As we move into several units (sedimentation and granular media filtration) that are based on fluid mechanics, I thought I'd give you this bit of information I gleaned this morning from colleagues on Twitter and how prairie dog burrows are better ventilated than most classrooms . Wind-induced ventilation of the burrow of the prairie-dog, Cynomys ludovicianus From: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00694136 We will continue the unit on sedimentation this week. I posted a handout in the Lecture (powerpoint) folder on LON-CAPA. We'll work through this problem either Monday or Wednesday. On Tuesday, Paul Larios, MSU CEE alum will speak to us during the tutorial.  We'll start his lecture at 10:30 am.  He will speak about Water Resources Engineering in the Hudson Valley, NY. and will discuss four recent WTP/WWTP jobs he has worked on. Two involve the use of NYC water supply...

With the fifth week of the semester done and work piling up, it is hard not to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. I hope by moving due dates to Wednesdays, combining the tutorial assignment (a drawing of a flocculation basin, and no, you don't have to use CAD), I've relieved some of the anxiety. We all need ways to release some of the stress. And we all need a good laugh. Last semester a 489 student introduced me to Pluto ( latest Pluto video ). Pluto makes me smile. Positive sidewalk chalk messages make me smile. Seeing students, even in Zoom (and sometimes in person as we sort out ENE 480 remote labs), makes me smile.  What makes you smile these days? And if you don't feel like smiling, that is ok. However, I do hope you are taking time to de-stress, remembering that the situation we are in is temporary. We will move beyond this. And hopefully, we'll all be stronger and more resilient in the end