Nothing Succeeds Like Success

December 2003

After the last very successful WEFTEC conference and exhibition in Chicago, we reported that the Water Environment Federation (WEF) had lived up to its promise. This year, they did it again. The audience in Los Angeles was the best ever in terms of serious interest in our pumps for a variety of municipal and industrial applications. The WEF’s 76th annual technical and education conference attracted an attendance of 15,839 eager wastewater professionals. Held October 11–15th, 2003 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, WEFTEC featured over 800 exhibitors and covered 192,390 square feet of floor space.

Many factors contributed to our success. Most notably was the equipment we sent clear across the country. Front and center was the SGK bearingless run dry vertical pump that performed yeoman-like duty operating, on average, 10 hours a day running dry. The run dry feature seemed to really resonate with both engineers specifying and municipalities employing effluent/chemical transfer sump pumps. Along with the SGK we highlighted our other sealless pumps featuring a series of CGM mag drive pumps as well as our rotary Flex i liner® pump. We wanted to emphasize the fact that sealless technology runs throughout our entire product range.

From a marketing point of view, we ran a direct mail campaign in advance of the show and, during the show, the theme of Vanton “Specifications” was pervasive. We had a three-sided rotating sign, one side encouraging visitors to stop at our booth and receive their Vanton “Specs” at which time we not only provided a bound version of our pump specification sheets (a CD version was also available), but also a pair of Vanton sunglasses, which seemed to be in high demand in sunny California. The other two sides of the rotating sign used the theme “AVOID THIS.” One side showed a badly corroded and pitted stainless steel pump; the other side showed a fiberglass pump decomposing and melding together. These disasters could have been avoided by utilizing thermoplastics as the material of construction for these pumps.

This water and wastewater exhibition, the largest in North America, keeps getting bigger every year because of clean air and water mandates. This means more opportunities for plastic pumps to handle corrosive, hazardous, toxic and other aggressive fluids. Every municipality has become a chemical facility, testing, treating and neutralizing. Each industrial plant, no mater what it manufactures, incorporates chemical treatment to ensure wastewater and air quality.

PHOTO CAPTION: The above picture shows (from left to right) Larry Lewis; Roger Antonie, Vice President in charge of municipal sales for Liquid Handling Systems, our southern California agent; our CEO and President Mr. Gerald Lewis; and Ken Comerford. The smiles are not due to the great weather of California, but rather Roger had just closed an order for 18 vertical Sump-Gard® pumps for the River Mountains WTF Expansion. This is the second phase of a major project, and these vertical pumps will join 22 other Sump-Gard® pumps provided four years ago.

Other recent installations:

FLORIDA: Lee County WTP/R.O. plant. Two SG-PY2400 vertical centrifugals for handling plant drains and wastewater, 400 gpm, @ 160' TDH. (Montgomery, Watson & Harza)

TENNESSEE: Clarksville Water Treatment Plant. Two CGM-PY1½x1x6 horizontal magnetic drive pumps for hydrofluorsilicic acid, 30 gpm @ 18' TDH. (Jordan, Jones and Goulding)

NORTH CAROLINA: City of Charlotte. Four CGM-PY1½x1x6 horizontal magnetic drive centrifugal for 25% sodium hydroxide or 68% magnesium hydroxide, 30 gpm @ 56' TDH. (Carollo Engineers)

MICHIGAN: City of Detroit. Springwells Chemical Feed Improvement Project. Five Sump-Gard® pumps handling alum at 60 gpm @ 20' TDH. (Black & Veatch, Kansas City, MO)

GEORGIA: City of Atlanta. Sixteen magnetic drive pumps for handling ferric chloride, alum and caustics. (Camp Dresser McKee, Birmingham, AL)

WASHINGTON, DC: Washington Blue Plains Waste Facility. Forty-eight SGC-PY pump units with level controls and control panels, for handling acidic and caustic wastewater. (Frucon Construction WASA, Earth Tech Engineers)

PENNSYLVANIA: City of Philadelphia. Two Flex i liner® CC-PY30B/E close coupled pumps handling 30% ammonium hydroxide with Simplex control panels. (Greeley and Hansen Eng.)

NEVADA: River Mountain WTF Expansion. Eighteen vertical sump pumps in sizes from 3.5' to 12' long, for handling aqua ammonia, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid and alum. Value: $110,000. (Montgomery Watson/Hill J.V.)

CALIFORNIA: Penitencia Water Treatment-Santa Clara Valley Water District. Three vertical centrifugal sump pumps. One for transferring sulfuric acid from storage, the second for pumping an ozone quenching agent, and the third as a sump pump in a hydrogen peroxide storage tank. (Carollo Engineers)

Mark your calendar for next year’s WEF show that will be held in New Orleans October 2-6th, 2004. We expect that the show will surpass this year’s exhibit, and we are certain that the food will be much better.

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