From the future of resource recovery to the power of piloting new solutions, Pueblo’s Nancy Keller is ending her 35-year career on a bright note. In an exclusive BC Water News interview, Keller shares insights on addressing aging infrastructure with creative compliance strategies, the potential for sustainable uses in wastewater, and her passion for the equitable career opportunities within the water industry. Keller says her biggest accomplishment is when the division worked with the state, regional, and national EPA to secure the first individual discharger specific variance for selenium and sulfate in 2018. The variance allowed Pueblo to utilize a more affordable stepwise improvement process to reduce selenium through fixing collection systems and piloting alternative treatment technologies. As a result, ratepayers saved $250 million in upgrades and $10 million to $12 million in annual operation costs, a critical effort for a community with 25 percent living below the federal poverty level.
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About our guest
Nancy Keller
Keller managed Pueblo’s wastewater laboratory for 22 years and moved into regulatory compliance where she worked for eight years. She has served as the wastewater director since 2016. Keller retired in January 2022.
→Learn more about the City of Pueblo’s Division of Wastewater
→Learn about the WRF award-winning nutrient treatment project
→Learn more about BC:Ntensify®, innovative nutrient treatment solutions