Approved April 13, 1993, by the WEF Executive Committee

Certification and training of wastewater treatment plant and collection system personnel are vital to the success of the national program to restore and preserve water quality. States have the primary responsibility for ensuring that wastewater treatment plant and collection system personnel are certified and adequately trained. Private organizations such as the Water Environment Federation and the Association of Boards of Certification, in cooperation with state regulatory agencies, provide educational materials and certification tests. In the past, U.S. EPA also sponsored operator training programs.

Over the past 20 years, tens of billions of dollars have been invested in public and private wastewater treatment systems in the U.S. Having adequately trained and certified personnel to operate and maintain these systems is a crucial part of protecting this investment and ensuring compliance with environmental regulations, protection of public health, and facility worker safety. The success of this investment can be seen in the reduction of water-borne pathogens and pollutants in the nation's surface waters.

Wastewater treatment personnel need basic educational and training skills in the chemical, physical, and biological sciences, as well as systems operation, safety, and management in order to operate and maintain wastewater treatment systems properly. Continued education and skills development are necessary so that facility workers and managers can stay abreast of advances in treatment technologies and their application.

Candidates for positions as treatment system personnel should be required to demonstrate the necessary knowledge and skills through a testing and certification process. Certification, coupled with educational background and experience, is important in helping treatment system supervisory personnel evaluate the qualifications of potential treatment system employees.

State Certification
The Water Environment Federation believes that the certification of wastewater system personnel is best managed at the state level, and advocates continuation and strengthening of existing state certification programs. The Federation believes it is necessary for each state to have the ability to rely on minimum certification criteria, which should be developed by water quality professionals on a uniform national basis. Utilizing a two-fold approach would best serve all parties because extensive programs exist already at the state level which do not need to be duplicated at the federal level. The Federation opposes a federally managed certification program.

Uniform National Certification Criteria
Wastewater system personnel presently face wide variations in state requirements for certification. As environmental laws and regulations have become increasingly complex, a need has arisen for a set of minimum national certification criteria which all wastewater operations personnel should meet.

Uniform minimum criteria should be established on a national basis for states to utilize in their certification programs. National minimum criteria would enable each state to manage a certification program based on the collective knowledge and experience of treatment plant personnel from across the nation, while maintaining programs suited to the unique needs of individual states.

The Federation believes the body of knowledge for wastewater system operations rests among water quality management practitioners (operators, engineers, and others) and their affiliated professional organizations. The Clean Water Act should authorize the development of minimum certification criteria by water quality professionals, working with the U.S. EPA, and the widespread dissemination of such criteria to all states and water quality professional organizations.

Minimum national certification criteria would ensure continued progress in meeting federally mandated environmental protection requirements. They would help guarantee the performance of wastewater treatment facilities which have been funded by Congress under the Clean Water Act. Uniform national criteria also would encourage the movement of certified wastewater system personnel to positions in other states if states chose to expand upon reciprocal certification agreements.

States should continue to have primary responsibility for developing, implementing, and enforcing wastewater operations certification programs. However, all state programs should have to meet the minimum national criteria. States would not be limited by the national criteria and may set certification standards more stringent in any or all areas of wastewater operations-collection systems, wastewater treatment, monitoring, and analysis.

Development of a National Model Training Program
To complement the development of uniform minimum national certification criteria, Congress should specify the development of a national model training program on which each state could base its own training program. The national model training program would serve as an educational and technical resource for state programs. States would be encouraged, but not required, to adopt the model national training program.

With congressional authorization, U.S. EPA would develop the national model training program in conjunction with professionals in the water quality field. Program elements would need to be reviewed by qualified and/or certified wastewater operations personnel, who could provide insight into the appropriateness of proposed elements based on their first-hand experience. Training program elements would be reviewed on a regular basis in order to incorporate new technologies, management philosophies, and treatment processes as they become available.

Elements of the national model training program should be geared toward helping wastewater operations personnel meet the requirements of state programs based on the uniform national certification criteria. Training program components should be developed to complement existing wastewater personnel training curricula offered extensively through community colleges and other qualified organizations.