Bill Lauer has more than 35 years of experience in drinking water quality and treatment process technology. He is an internationally recognized authority on drinking water health effects and treatment methods and authoring or editing 22 books and more than 70 articles on these subjects. Recently, he authored the revision of the AWWA Water Treatment Operator Training Handbook and the AWWA Water Distribution Operator Training Handbook.
He has served on many advisory panels such as: Environmental Protection Agency Blue Ribbon Panel on Best Available Treatment Technologies, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Health Effects Issues for International Space Station, the National Academy of Science Health Effects of Recycled Water, and the Government of Singapore Reclaimed Water Expert Panel.
Water treatment process and distribution system operation optimization for water quality improvement is a specialty. Mr. Lauer is an expert in water quality issues for water collection, treatment and distribution systems. His projects have included those dealing with drinking water odors, corrosion, cross-connection control, disinfection, discolored water, customer relations, water system management, and particulate removal processes. Mr. Lauer has recently completed serving more than fifteen years as Program Manager for the Partnership for Safe Water for AWWA. Mr. Lauer was the staff technical advisor for the development of AWWA utility management standards for; Water Treatment Plant Operation and Management, and Distribution System Operations. These programs seek to improve water and wastewater utility operations and the quality of services.
Mr. Lauer was project manager during design, construction, operation, and testing of Denver’s $30 million Direct Potable Reuse Demonstration Project. The 1 mgd advanced treatment plant (referred to as the world's most complex) included: high pH lime clarification, two-stage softening, recarbonation, granular media pressure filtration, selective ion exchange and its associated ammonia recovery and removal process, two-stage granular activated carbon adsorption and a fluidized bed activated carbon regeneration furnace, ultraviolet irradiation disinfection, reverse osmosis, air stripping, ozonation, chlorine dioxide disinfection, chloramine disinfection and micro and ultrafiltration. More than ten years of studies including lifetime whole animal health effects evaluations concluded that the direct conversion of treated secondary wastewater effluent to drinking water quality was feasible. Mr. Lauer is a leading authority in water reuse and as such participates in many national and international water reuse projects.
Mr. Lauer managed the water quality program for the Denver Water Department, serving more than one million customers, and supervised operation of conventional water treatment facilities with a combined treatment capacity of more than 600 million gallons per day. In this regard, he was responsible for the training, education, and management of three water treatment plants. Mr. Lauer managed the water quality laboratory as part of his responsibility. The laboratory employed state-of-the-art testing methods to assess chemical and microbiological safety. Many research projects were conducted under Mr. Lauer’s direction to support treatment plant operations, source water protection, and enhance distribution system integrity.