By Ronald Y. Pérez, WC&P Managing Editor
The Texas Water Quality Association (TWQA) announced its training dates for July: 1) Basic Water Conditioning, July 15, San Antonio; 2) Water Chemistry, July 16, San Antonio, and 3) Advanced Water Conditioning, July 17, San Antonio. For more information, call (210) 680-2300.
In a December newsletter distributed to members, Ohio WQA (OWQA) president Paul Staley discussed 2003 and what it meant for the organization. He wrote about various issues including mold, telemarketing legis-lation, and even a proposed state sales tax: “The State of Ohio tried to force businesses to charge sales tax, based on the county where the product or service was delivered or installed…We are happy to report that the implementation of the rules has been delayed until 2005 and several organizations are working to get the rules changed.” Staley declined to specify what organizations are involved, but you can bet the OWQA will be one of them.
In related news, the OWQA has invited WC&P Technical Review Committee member and “Creative Marketing” columnist David H. Martin for a seminar slated for Bellville, Ohio, on April 23 (see Upcoming Events). The topic of the seminar will be “Integrated Marketing: Building Image and Capturing Leads on a Budget.” Martin, president of Lenzi Martin Marketing, will focus on developing leads through referrals, community event marketing, taste sampling to capture leads, combining media for effective campaigns, and a look at direct mail marketing. After lunch, Rebecca Petty, of the Ohio Department of Health, will brief members on potential changes to Private Water System Rules. Members should have received registration materials via mail. Finally, the OWQA has decided to move its annual meeting to the fall beginning this year rather than continue to combine it with the Great Lakes WQA show. Dates haven’t been determined yet, but an association spokesperson said the change was made because many Great Lakes meetings were held outside of Ohio. Moreover, it didn’t make geographic sense to invite OWQA members to travel to other states for their meetings. Still, the spokesperson said attending OWQA members will continue to meet informally at Great Lakes events.
The Pacific WQA (PWQA) mailed a newsletter to its members in mid-December touting its “State of the Water Quality Industry in California” series of road show dates (see Upcoming Events). The meetings are co-sponsored by the national Water Quality Association. As an incentive, the PWQA offers to pick up lunch for all attendees. In part, the newsletter reads: “The ‘water softener brine issue’ is not going away. But it can be [italics theirs] contained through action by the association and its members. This is no time to be complacent. Restriction on water softeners may be passed by a city council only if such action is necessary for a(n) agency to comply with municipal waste permits…” It goes on to say some agencies are launching consumer “buy back” incentive programs to switch to higher efficiency equipment or portable exchange. Meanwhile, others will penalize consumers who use automatic softeners—up to $2,000 a year. For more information, call (760) 644-7348.
To submit an item for this column, contact WC&P managing editor Ron Pérez: (520) 323-6144 or [email protected]. For further details or updates on these and other state and regional items of related interest, see Breaking News at www.wcponline.com