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CBPA News Technician Info
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December 6, 2003For those unable to attend, the CBPA 2003 Annual Conference was a resounding success! The CBPA would like to extend its sincerest appreciation to the speakers and vendors that made this event so interesting. The title, "Winds of Change", was so appropriate due to all the changes in the certification requirements in Colorado. Your CBPA officers worked very hard and gave many hours to the success of the event, thanks to them for their hard work, send them email here to let them know your thoughts on the 2003 Conference. Based on the initial review of the feedback forms, most of the attendees learned a lot from the Conference, though indicated they wished for longer sessions on the different topics. You may get your wish, as there was some talk about extending the event to two days next year. That would be one way to ensure adequate time for the sessions and allow more time for each speaker, and for additional questions about the presentations. One last item, after the last anonymous postcard received by our members, your officers and I put together an editorial on the subject. You may read it here. If your membership in this organization does not allow you to attend meetings, it is especially intended for you and to remove any concerns you may have about its false allegations. December 2, 2003Ok, we think we finally have the official agenda set after a flurry of minor spelling corrections and last minute changes, head over to the 2003 Conference page if you need it. Also, the September and October meeting minutes were added to the Newsletters / Minutes page. November 30, 2003We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! The electronic December CBPA Newsletter and Advertising Guide went out this weekend, but we're having some problems with the mass mailing program, so if you didn't receive it, go to the Newsletters & Minutes page to view them. The CBPA 2003 Annual Conference is this coming Thursday, so check out the Conference Page for updated information and the Agenda. If you haven't signed up yet, there is also a registration form there too. November 16, 2003A big thank you goes out to those of you who helped stamp, label and seal the hundreds of CBPA Annual Conference invitations due to go out this week. It was a lot of work, but many hands took care of it in short order, and we even had a business meeting at the same time. Thanks again to Leigh for hosting the meeting and providing the refreshments. If you don't receive a registration form in the mail, you can print one out here. Don't wait too long to sign up, as this will be an excellent conference this year. November 10, 2003The new BPECC forums are up, check it out here, or link to it from the menus on their home page. It features one of the best forum software packages available, and should be an excellent communication tool for backflow professionals around Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region. Those of you on the West Slope should find it very useful. November 5, 2003All the Minutes, Newsletters and Advertising Guides were renamed, re-organized, cleaned up, and re-linked on the NL & Mins page in the last few days. If you find any errors, please let me know. I plan to bring back the picture galleries, but it is not as high of a priority as the rest of the site. Send that email if you have anything new you'd like to see. The forums were also removed, due to lack of activity, but we may bring those back with a much newer software package down the road. Click any email link and let us know if that feature is of interest to you as a CBPA member. November 1, 2003This website is undergoing an overhaul of the basic structure, our apologies if you've been unable to access the site during these changes, but it is better in the long run for these changes occur. All the original content of the site will be added back, it will just take a little bit of time to get everything set up as before. So if you find links not working after another week or so, or other issues with the site, let us know so we can address and fix them. On another note, the "Advisory Committee" has changed their name, we're pleased to introduce the Backflow Prevention Education Council of Colorado!
Give the logo above a click to see their new website, a must-see for water purveyors, backflow technicians and others involved in the cross-connection industry in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region. Along with the name change and new logo, there is an excellent calendar of backflow prevention events in Colorado and around the country. Various events are listed, including most of the ABPA and ASSE training opportunities available locally. If you are aware of events not listed, send them an email, more information on calendar submissions can be found on this page. In addition, they are providing a listing of backflow technicians by region, this will be THE list to be on for contract backflow testing and repair. Be sure and bookmark or add this site to your favorites, we're sure you will find it to be an excellent resource for backflow prevention information in Colorado. October 11, 2003Another anonymous postcard has been sent to members of the CPBA questioning the integrity of this organization and its officers and members. Do any of these allegations have any merit? No... Why would a person or persons sling mud behind a veil of anonymity if there was any validity to their claims? These postcards have the CBPA return address, so in committing mail fraud and not putting their name on their false accusations, what does this say about the integrity of the sender(s)? No one gets paid to be an officer, it is hard work done by honest people in what little spare time they have in this busy world. We all have jobs, families and other daily responsibilities, and do the work of the CBPA because of our dedication to clean water and backflow
prevention education. If you have any concerns about the ridiculous allegations made by these anonymous postcards,
attend a meeting and ask questions, or your CBPA officers would be more than happy to meet with you in person to discuss them. If you prefer, you may also
email your officers here. October 8, 2003The October meeting was held in Northglenn today, and we'd like to thank Paul Tedesco for hosting today! All of the CBPA members that attended the Western Regional ABPA conference talked about what an excellent forum it was for a variety of backflow issues, and some great information was provided. Colorado was well represented with over ten members of the CBPA attending. Our CBPA President, Leigh Fenton, was congratulated at the meeting today for representing our chapter while attending the conference, including her hard work with the ABPA By-laws committee. They approved the proposed changes to our By-laws, and we are asking for the members to read through those changes, and send any comments or concerns to your officers. The finalized version will be available here and sent to all members before the December Annual Conference, where they will voted on for approval by the full membership. You can view the proposed changes here: CBPA Proposed By-laws for 2003 In addition, some nominations were accepted for 2004 Officers, but we need your help. Please use the email link below to nominate a member you feel will best represent our chapter for 2004. Finally, the Water Purveyor cross connection contact listing we are hosting here has received some corrections. If you find any of the information is out of date, or needs additional info, please let us know so we can make those changes. Remember, this listing is to help the backflow testers of Colorado contact the proper people about cross connection issues, and submit those test reports to the correct addresses. September 28, 2003The October Newsletter is online, as are the May and June approved minutes. Give them a look for the latest! Also, for those attending the Western Regional ABPA conference, look for Leigh down there, she went early to go over the revised CBPA By-laws with National... September 23, 2003The September edition of the Northern Subchapter newsletter is up, give it a read for information on the upcoming meeting. September 13, 2003The last meeting at Dillon Company was fun for those who missed it, they brought in some excellent Mexican food from a local restaurant that filled everyone up. Thanks for Mike and the gang for hosting us again! There were some small changes to the next few meetings, please check the Meetings page for more information... Red Rocks Community College sent an updated backflow technician training schedule which is now linked on the Training page. Also, we would like to thank our Vice-President, Scott Campbell, for working on and sending in a Water Purveyor CCC Contact listing. This should help all the testers out there in contacting water purveyors with backflow questions or requirements, you should see it linked on the left of the home page, enjoy! :) August 13, 2003I'm sure most of you have heard of the msblaster virus making the rounds lately, as it has affected a lot of major institutions, users, and internet service providers. It is a fairly nasty virus, and the free removal tool provided by Symantec (makers of Norton Anti-Virus) does not seem to work correctly. One of my tech friends provided me with the information needed to remove this, you may download it here if you are infected. August 9, 2003The August Newsletter and Advertising Guide are online on the Newsletter and Minutes Page, get'em while they're hot! The CBPA meeting next week offers breakfast for those that RSVP to 720-733-6059 or your officers by August 10th by 7:00 am. There is a map to the location at Swedish Hospital on the Meetings Page. I have received word that the map for the meeting Wednesday is not properly displaying the location on Mapquest, Swedish Hospital is located on the north side of Hampden near Clarkson. Please check a Denver area map if unsure. The August Newsletter does feature an article by our VP, Scott Campbell, talking about his experience getting his ABPA certification and proctor qualification. A good read if you would like to know more about the process. In addition, Tara contacted Red Rocks who indicated to her that they will offer ABPA certification beginning in February of 2004, in addition to their current ASSE training classes. July 6, 2003We hope everyone had a fun and safe July 4th, and didn't get any sunburn :) The July Newsletter and Advertising Guide are up on the Newsletters & Minutes page, so give them a peak if you haven't seen them yet. Also, the evening BBQ at Marshall-Rodeno is on July 16th, and the RSVP is due by 5:00 pm on Monday July 7th! So don't delay if you haven't responded yet, do so by tomorrow evening... June 14, 2003The meeting last Wednesday was a success, with over 30 people attending... maybe even closer to 40. Thanks for Brent Richards and the rest of the gang over at Repmasters for lunch. They also demonstrated the new Colt & Maxim series of backflow preventers from Ames, which are the lightest devices on the market in the respective categories. They also claim to have the lowest flow loss in the industry among backflow preventers, currently only the smaller sizes (4" and under?) are USC approved, with the bigger models still undergoing testing. Also, added a few more Meeting Minutes to that page... June 5, 2003How about a link for the day? Click here to check out an organization trying to bring clean drinking water to those that don't have access to something we take for granted. Link here June 4, 2003The RSVP for the June lunch meeting at Repmasters has been extended to Monday, June 9th, so get those RSVP's in to attend the meeting. There were a couple updates to the Meetings Page, except for some uncertainty on October 8th, which should be clarified soon. The Newsletters & Minutes page was updated with the June Newsletter and Advertising Guide. Finally, if you are looking for ASSE or ABPA certification, Cory from Backflow Consulting, Testing & Repair, Inc, sent the following contact information. Backflow Consulting, Testing and Repair, Inc. May 11, 2003The May 2003 Newsletter and Advertising Guide are posted on the Newsletter & Minutes page, go check them out if you haven't received them via email or snail mail. While it looks like the drought is less of an issue this year, a lot of water utilities must still get reservoir capacities up, and there is a mix of voluntary and mandatory water restrictions. I've added the link in the left navigation bar to the 9 News drought page for additional tips on saving water. In addition, if any entity wishes to let the Colorado testers know of training opportunities for ABPA or ASSE certification, please email us. April 4, 2003A postcard was received by a number of CBPA members recently, entitled "Backflow Training Fraud Alert". It even listed the CBPA return address for replies. This postcard did NOT come from the CBPA, and should be totally disregarded as to content. The Jim Purzycki repair seminars will be held as planned, and the minimal fee charged for the repair seminars provides for expenses such as rental of the seminar location, food provided to attendees, seminar materials, certificates of completion, transportation expenses for the assemblies across the state and any other expenses incurred as a part of this training. These seminars have been held across the country, not only for the CBPA in previous years, but other chapters of the ABPA nationwide, and are highly regarded as to content. No attempt was made to contact any officer of the CBPA, or to confirm any of the "information" it contained, much of which is totally unsubstantiated. If you are in possession of this postcard, we ask that you immediately contact your officers at this email address. In addition, please disregard the fraudulent intent of this postcard, and don't miss out on the opportunity provided by this excellent repair seminar if you test backflow preventers. Mr Purzycki provides great information on the repair of a variety of different manufacturers backflow preventers, and provides a wealth of tips on troubleshooting and maintenance. At $55 a pop, it is one of the cheapest all day training seminars you will find. March 31, 2003Just an update to the next CBPA meeting, I had the date down incorrectly as April 14th, the correct date is April 9th following the Repair Seminar. This puts the meeting at 4:30 pm on April 9th, but the Meetings Page does have the correct location and map :) Here is a link to some water-related reading discussing the grim future for the world water supply (courtesy of Wired News), food for thought: Link to the article here March 26, 2003Long time since an update, but I've built a new computer and moving everything over to the new box has been a long and complicated process. I'm finally there, and this is my first attempt at an update, so we'll see how it goes. In addition to website updates, it affected our ability to do the bulk email this month, and caused a few other minor administrative problems. One other issue that has occurred, for some reason, the newsletter would not convert to the PDF format we have standardized on... we spent some time with Adobe Tech Support, and seem to have resolved the issue. The Newsletter & Minutes page has been updated with the March 2003 Newsletter, the March 2003 Advertising Guide, and the Repair Workshop brochure. So, we'd like to apologize to our advertisers, but the Newsletter and Ad Guide will go out as promised, as we've fixed the problems and hopefully are back to business as usual. In addition, the Meetings Page was updated... Repair Workshop 2003 The excellent Jim Purzycki Backflow Repair Seminar will be held on 4 dates in April... April 7th in Colorado Springs, April 9th in Longmont, April 10th in Fort Collins, and April 12th in Grand Junction. The deadline for signing up is April 1st, so please access the Repair Seminar brochure mentioned above to sign-up! February 26, 2003Sorry about being a little slow getting minutes from meetings posted, but we've posted September, October, November, December & January meeting minutes. All are now available on the Newsletter & Minutes page. The March meeting information has also been posted on the Meetings page, so head over there if you need directions, dates and times. Glenn Bodnar will be available to answer questions about the certification changes listed below, and we expect a larger than normal turn-out, so an RSVP is required via email here. February 14, 2003It's been a busy year already, what with the changes listed below, and other behind the scene activities. Here is an addendum to a question that has been asked by some of our members. What if my current Colorado Certification does not expire until 2005 or 2006? Glenn Bodnar responded, "You do not have to get ASSE, ABPA or ABC certification until your current Colorado certification expires. At that time, you will need to be certified in one of the national certifications listed in the previous sentence. We are also working on listing training opportunities on this website, and should have some information posted next week on the home page. Some are listed below in previous news posts, and it seems that ASSE training and certification opportunities are available now. Each national certification will have its own specific requirements, as those become more clear, we will provide that information as well. In addition, the State database will be revamped to track which certification a tester has, and which regions of Colorado you are available to test in. We hope to publish those lists on this website for those testers that wish to be contacted for contract testing. More info to come on this... Finally, the Northern Subchapter has a meeting on February 20th at the City of Fort Collins building, and wishes to invite anyone to attend. Check the Meetings Page for more information, and their Newsletter posted on the Newsletter & Minutes page. January 23, 2003As promised on the home page, here is the interview with Glenn Bodnar, who oversees the cross-connection program at the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (his answers are in blue): 1. Changes are coming for Colorado cross connection certification, can you outline the changes Glenn? Changes to The Colorado Primary Drinking Water Regulations, Article
1 - General, section 1.2.2 (14), definition of "Cross-Connection Control Technician"; and revisions to Article 12 - Hazardous
Cross-Connections were adopted by the Colorado Board Of Health on January 15, 2003. The changes are as follows: The definition of a
"Certified Cross-Connection Control Technician" means a person who has responsibility for the testing, operation and maintenance of
cross-connection containment devices and is certified in accordance with the provisions of Article 12 of this regulation. 2. How will my Colorado certification be handled under the new regulations? The main issue to understand is that the present certification process that had been in place since 1984 is no longer available to Technicians in Colorado. In its place are ASSE, ABPA, or ABC certifications. The drinking water regulations require that all technicians have one of the above certifications to test backflow devices. All technicians will need to re-certify through one of the above organizations. From the CDPHE perspective, each of the certifications, ASSE, ABPA, ABC, or a current Colorado Certified
Cross-Connection Control Technician, are authorized to perform device testing. 5. When will the regulation changes be finalized? A final rule making hearing is scheduled for March 19, 2003. The State, with assistance from the Colorado Cross-Connection Control Advisory Committee, is in the process of informing all public water suppliers and certified technicians of the changes to the cross-connection control regulation. If your certification expires in 2003 or 2004, your expiration date has been extended until December 31, 2004. During 2003 and 2004, you should begin the certification process through ASSE, ABPA, or ABC. Your cross-connection control technician certification through ASSE, ABPA, or ABC will be recognized throughout Colorado. It should be noted however, that some public water suppliers will need to amend their ordinances to reflect the current regulatory requirements. You must have a specific certification in backflow or cross-connection control testing to comply with the regulations. A distribution operator certified by ABC is not approved to test backflow prevention devices. Furthermore, an individual certified as an ASSE Surveyor may not test devices unless he/she has an ASSE Tester Certification. All public water suppliers should accept each of these certifications, as allowed by the regulations, however, an individual water supplier has the authority to set a rule or ordinance specifying any one, or all of the three national certifications. The CBPA would like to thank Glenn for taking the time to answer these questions, if you have further questions, please forward them to your CBPA Officers via email here, and we'll try and get them answered as soon as possible. Finally, there are still some unknowns, such as training opportunities and schooling... we hope to have more information here as soon as we know. In the news item below, we did mention Sandy Lawson and his ASSE training classes, if any other schools or individuals plan to offer training or schooling in any of the 3 national certifications, please email us so that we may provide that information on this website. January 15, 2003Well, the elections have been finalized... I'd like to congratulate and welcome our 2003 CBPA Officers!
Also, if you read the bottom of the Home Page, there are changes coming to the Colorado backflow testers certification in the near future. We will post more information as soon as it is available, so try to not send questions to the officers until that information is posted here. Finally, due to changes that are coming, classes for new backflow testers are kind of in limbo. Sandy Lawson emailed that he is offering ASSE certification classes later this month, a January 27th evening class, and also a 2 day re-cert class for existing ASSE certified testers. You can check out his website at www.smwater.com for more information. January 4, 2003The CBPA hopes everyone had a great holiday season, sure seemed to come and go very fast this year. It looks like the upcoming year will present many challenges for water utilities, as the drought looks to be extended into the coming year. This will keep cross connection in the forefront as short supply of drinking water will need protection, and customers expect that water to be clean. For your reading pleasure, here is a link to a new book called "Water Follies". The link is actually to a review of the book, which talks about how regulated surface waters are, but regulations on ground waters are non-existent. It also discusses the interrelationship between surface and ground waters, and how this needs to be explored further. The January Newsletter and Advertising Guide are online on the Newsletter page... also, all 2002 news has been archived to the link below. |
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