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<< 2004

Video Educates Public About Biosolids

WEF Highlights, September, 2004
By Vincent Nazareth, P.Eng.

Each year, the Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Va.) presents awards for outstanding achievements in the water environment field. One of the principal categories is public education, an area recognized as one of the most important because public communication and consultation are in the forefront of WEF members' work.

In 2003, WEF's Public Education Award in the member association category was given to "The Nature of Biosolids, " an educational video prepared by the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO; Milton, Ontario).

The past decade has seen a notable increase in the level of concern expressed by the public in regard to environmental protection. One of the key issues of public concern has been land application of biosolids on agricultural land. Developments in communications - particularly the Internet - have made it extremely easy for a well-organized environmental activist movement to gain quick access to a wide audience.

In 2001, the outcry from the public in Ontario, in regard to the use of biosolids on farmland, had grown noticeably and was beginning to affect the ability of large municipalities to beneficially use their biosolids on land. In many cases, the public appeared to have formed its opinion based on incomplete or misleading information.

At WEAO, we recognized how essential it is for the public to have access to correct and complete information in order for them to understand, the issues - and in order to facilitate their full and knowledgeable participation in decisions that affect their environment.

We knew the gap in public knowledge was detrimental to the biosolids industry, and there was a real need for an initiative to enable factual biosolids information to be made readily available to the public.

After carefully considering various actions, at a spring 2002 meeting of WEAO's Biosolids Committee (formed in 1998), the committee decided that the most versatile medium for this education tool would be a video, to be used in the following scenarios:

as an education tool for the public at large, councilors and other politicians, and interested stakeholders;
as a visual aid at public meetings;
as an educational tool for municipal staff; and
as a tool for briefing the media.

We decided the effort to produce this video would be fairly intense, and we created a Biosolids Education Video Sub-committee (BEV). The committee was made up of the following volunteers, drawn from different sectors of the industry.

Vincent Nazareth , BEV Chair, R.V. Anderson Associates Limited,

Consulting Engineer

Steve Nutt, BEV Vice-chair, XCG Consultants Ltd., Consulting Engineer
Mark Rupke, BEV Member, City of Toronto
Public Service - Plant Operations/Management
Irwin Osinga, BEV Member, CH2M Hill Canada, Consulting Engineer
Phil Sidhwa, BEV Member, AWS Planners and Engineers,

Land Application Contractor

The following Board Liaison Members were later added, to provide regular and timely input to the WEAO Board.

Cindy Toth, City of St. Catharines, Public Sector-Management
Al Vivian, US Filter, Equipment Sales

The committee anticipated that this endeavor would cost between US $40,000 and US $60,000 to complete. Because municipalities would be the primary beneficiaries of this education tool, we decided to seek their financial support through donations. WEAO matched the average contribution from the municipalities.

We knew the gap in public knowledge was detrimental to the biosolids Industry, and there was a real need for an initiative to enable factual biosolids information to be made readily available to the public.

The BEV committee prepared an outline of the video and then produced a draft script with the help of our communications expert, Commexus Inc. (Kitchener, Ontario). The draft identified the proposed number of "on-location" shoots, the number of interviews, who was to be interviewed, the topics to be covered in the interview, and a suggestion for the type of graphics needed to complete the video (such as animations and time lapse photography). Commexus selected Endless Films Inc. (Toronto, Ontario) for video production, based on the creativeness of their proposal submissions.

Filming began in the late spring of 2002 to coincide with the start of the biosolids spreading season - the theme of the video being to track the performance of a farm from the application of biosolids to the period just before harvest. The project suffered a minor setback in August 2002, after some particularly bad publicity about biosolids in the press. The BEV com mittee, after reviewing the issues, decided that more interviews were required to ensure that the concerns being expressed by the public were properly addressed in the video. This, of course, affected both the budget and schedule and resulted in a delay of some four months.

A draft video was ready for review in January 2003, and a dummy soundtrack was added so contributing municipalities and the WEAO Board could review the video before final production. After approval, the video production crew was able to confirm the narrator, get the original music score written and recorded, then head to the sound studio to put it all together.

The video was conceptualized, scripted, and produced over a 20- month period. The final video, with music and professional narration, premiered as part of the Opening Session at the WEAO Annual Conference in April 2003. Based on the overwhelmingly positive response, particularly from WEF representatives at the conference, WEAO decided to enter the video for consideration in WEF's annual awards program. In July 2003 we learned that our video - "The Nature of Biosolids" - had been selected for WEF's Public Education Award for Member Associations.

Our next endeavor is to use the video material as the basis for an educational package that we hope will become approved curriculum material for Ontario high schools.

Copies of the video package are available at a cost of US$ 200.00 (inclusive of shipping and handling). Each package includes a VHS tape (NTSC format), a DVD, and a presenter's guide printed in color. For purchase or for more information, contact Julie Vincent , WEAO Ad ministrator, at P.O. Box 176, Milton, ONTARIO L9T 4N9, Canada, by phone at (416) 410-6933, by fax at (416) 410-1626, or by e-mail at weao@weao.org.