The latest edition of IAMU's Toolbox Talks - Hydration is Never Optional is now available.

Click here to download it.

Other Toolbox Talk articles are available here.

If you have a Toolbox Talk idea, please send it to Margret Meade.

The State of Iowa now has over one million households that have responded to the 2020 Census. Currently in Iowa, about one in three households have yet to respond to the 2020 Census.
 
View the the 2020 Census Response Rate Map and Response Rate Rankings. Nationwide, over 91.1 million households, or 61.6 percent, have responded to the census.
 
The State of Iowa, with 67.8 percent of households responding, is tied in fourth place with Nebraska for state rankings.
 
The Census Bureau urges every household to complete the census as soon as possible:

• Online at 2020Census.gov
  
• By phone:  844-330-2020 – call any time 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. seven days a week
• By mail with a paper form delivered to households that did not respond online or by phone

 
Households that do not respond on their own to the census will be visited by a census taker during the Nonresponse Follow-up Operation.
 
Responding to the 2020 Census is important. Census results shape decisions about how billions of dollars in public funds are spent for schools, fire and emergency services, hospitals and healthcare, roads and other public services. Results from the 2020 Census also determine how many seats Iowa receives in Congress and provide data for redrawing legislative districts.
 
Here is the 2020 Census timeline updated with COVID-19 operational adjustments.

IAMU is offering a 2-hour New Chopper Pump Technologies & Collection Systems 101  Webinar for our utility members on July 7th.

Presented by Chad Sparks from Electric Pump and Shane Jacobson from CIT Sewer Solutions.

2 CEU hours available for wastewater.

Click here for more details and to register.

Only registered participants will receive the webinar link.

Due to the ongoing public health situation, we have decided to cancel this year’s course offering. 

This is unfortunate and we are disappointed.  We plan to bring Skip back next year in July 2021.

If you pre-registered, your pre-registration has been cancelled and no invoice will be sent to you.

We hope to see you next year.

As pandemic restrictions subside and more people begin the return to public life and public workspaces, building owners, operators, energy managers, and occupants are confronted with the challenge of an increased need to ensure safe, healthy, and comfortable indoor environments. 

The IAEE and the IAMU have partnered to provide a series of webinars that address energy efficiency and building systems solutions to combat the challenges of COVID-19 and other indoor air quality and general pathogen concerns. IAEE and IAMU are offering four, 1-hour online sessions conducted over 4 weeks, free of charge.  Attendees will have the opportunity to earn up to four continuing education units on a host of topics. Each session is offered twice so you can select the date that works best for you. More details about each session are provided below.

We hope that this series will provide you a foundation to build on as we work to address energy efficiency and decreased pathogen levels in our work environments.

https://www.iowaenergy.org/en/webinars/

When it comes to lifting transformers, aerial devices equipped with jibs are one of the handiest tools available to line workers. Compared to old methods for transformer replacement – which required workers to climb the pole and use a pulley to manually lift the transformer – using a jib is safer, easier and more productive.

Most aerial devices sold to companies in the utility industry are equipped with jibs. However, not all jibs are the same, and the user should evaluate the type of work to be done when choosing the equipment for the job.

Consider whether the tasks are construction or maintenance work on distribution or transmission lines. Before dispatching to the job, workers should know how the lines are situated relative to where the vehicle can be located. In addition, the weight of the load will determine the capacity of the aerial device and jib needed.

In the remainder of this article, we will provide an overview of the four key areas that inform good practice for using jibs: knowing your equipment, inspecting your equipment, knowing the load and understanding proper setup.

Read the full article here.

Have you created a plan for employees returning to work post-pandemic?  IAMU is pleased to invite you to a training webinar conducted jointly by the MJBA Benefit Compliance Program and Ahlers & Cooney, P.C.  This one hour virtual training, held at 1pm on July 7th, will provide best practices for Iowa public employers to consider when staff returns to the worksite. Join us to discuss what an employer must require or may allow as our state re-opens.

Questions we will cover:

• Which laws govern your decisions when creating a return to work plan?
• Can the employer require employees not to come to the worksite if they’ve been exposed to an individual who tested positive for COVID-19?
• Can employees request not to come to work if they or a family member has an underlying medical condition?
• Is time off under these scenarios paid or unpaid?

Register Here

IAMU is once again offering the Electric Utility System Operation Short Course (EUSO) presented by Skip Collier of Professional Training Systems, Inc.
 
Skip is highly regarded and has an extensive background in electric utility design, construction, maintenance and operation.
 
EUSO Short Course:  July 28 – 30
The EUSO Short Course is designed for any employee whose job performance will benefit from a basic understanding of the operations side of the business.  This includes those from legal, rates, engineering, purchasing, computer application, marketing, customer service, inventory control, finance, accounting, safety, risk analysis as well as those from generating plants.  One goal for this class is to have students leave with the ability to easily identify all of the electrical equipment they see in a substation as they walk by, along with all the equipment found on the poles in a residential area.  Non-electrical engineers are often at a disadvantage in the electric utility environment due to a lack of familiarity with technical issues.  The better you understand the utility’s product – electrical energy – and how it is created and distributed, the better you can serve the utility and your customers.  This course assumes no electrical background, and builds on the basics to provide a comprehensive understanding of the equipment and operations.
 
Line Maintainer apprentices will receive 21 Basic OJT hours for taking the EUSO Course.

Registration fees for the course are below.
 
(*If you are planning on sending more than one participant from your organization, please make sure to share this with multiple departments so that you qualify for the reduced cost with the initial registration.)

• EUSO Course - $950 for a single registrant OR $850 each for two or more participants from the same utility/organization

Due to the ever changing nature of the ongoing COVID19 public health emergency, the status of the training workshop is subject to change.

You may PRE-REGISTER now.  Invoicing will be sent out as the date draws closer, and IAMU can confirm that the training will take place.
 
For additional information and to register, please click HERE.

IAMU will hold its 26th Annual Water and Wastewater Operator’s Training Workshop on November 18-20, 2020. As we prepare for this yearly training that brings together municipal water and wastewater operators from around Iowa, we are asking for presentation proposals. The presentations must provide educational content and must not be sales pitches for specific products or services because members will be receiving continuing education credit for their time at the workshop.

If you are interested in presenting, download, complete, and return the Call for Presentations Form to smarsh@iamu.org.

If you have any questions about the Call for Presentations Form or the workshop, please contact Steve Marsh at 515.289.1999 or by email at smarsh@iamu.org.

Once completed, the Call for Presentations Form may be emailed to Steve.

Cedar Falls Utilities has recently been named as one of the fastest service providers in the country by PCMag. 

Click here for the full article.