Since 1988, teams representing Water Environment Federation (WEF) Member Associations have come together to complete in the Operations Challenge competition.  Operations Challenge is North America’s pre-eminent showcase of the skills of wastewater collection and treatment personnel.  This even, featured at the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC), started with twenty-two teams and one division and has grown to a forty team, two division formats.

The competition combines five equally weighted skills tests in the Collections, Laboratory, Maintenance, Process Control, and Safety events, which are summarized below:

• Collections: The event simulates connecting a 4-inch PVC lateral sewer line to an existing 8-inch PVC sewer pipe while in-service and the programming of an automatic sampler.
• Laboratory: The teams perform all steps of a laboratory process.
• Maintenance: The teams will prepare a Godwin Dri-Prime CD100M for service at a disabled lift station.
• Process Control: this event tests the knowledge of the teams in areas of process control, pumping, maintenance, laboratory, safety, flow measurement, and metering.
• Safety: The teams rescue an unconscious colleague from a confined space.