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The CEO of Wastewater – STAR Grantee's Career Highlighted in ES&T
Additional Profiles
(December, 2004) The career of EPA STAR grantee, Walter J. Weber, Jr., PhD, PE, DEE, was recently highlighted in the prestigious magazine, Environmental Science &Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society. In addition to his photograph appearing on the cover 
of the November 15 issue, the journal featured a tribute to him entitled, "Walter J. Weber, Jr.'s, Unique Legacy."This article detailed the significant contributions that Dr. Weber has made to the field of environmental engineering as a scientist, educator, and mentor during the last 40 years.
Dr. Weber was years ahead of his times as a graduate student at Harvard University. In the 1950's, he was already focusing on ways to reclaim wastewater. The leaders in the field of sanitary engineering dismissed his ideas, claiming that only pristine sources could ever be used for drinking water. Yet Dr. Weber persisted. After several conversations with President John F. Kennedy, also a Harvard alumnus, the President told Congress that we would have to find ways to reclaim or reuse the limited supply of water available on earth.
In the early 1960's, another water quality issue presented itself. Sulfonated alkylbenzenes, also known as synthetic detergents, were becoming popular as personal and industrial products. They were not biodegradable and were being released into the environment. Because they were visible as foams on the surfaces of rivers and lakes, the public was highly alarmed. The wastewater treatments available at the time, such as activated sludge, were not able to remove the contaminants. The Public Health Service responded to the problem by asking Dr. J. Caroll Morris of Harvard University to evaluate several treatment technologies for their ability to remove alkylbenzenes. Following the evaluation, he was to select one process for further research and development. Dr. Morris sought the assistance of Dr. Weber, who opted for "activated carbon technology" as the treatment process with the most potential. According to Dr. Weber, this choice drove the direction and course of his career for many years.
Dr. Weber is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Chemical, Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. Currently, he is focusing on the development, refinement, and quantification of process dynamics in environmental systems, including processes for water and wastewater treatment, and processes in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and ground waters. He also continues to work on the development of advanced technologies for industrial and municipal water and wastewater treatment, hazardous waste treatment and disposal, pollution control, and water reclamation and reuse.
As a STAR grantee, Dr. Weber has been involved in a number of projects. He recently completed research on "Superheated Water and Steam Degreasing of Working Stocks, Parts, and Equipment in Machining, Manufacturing and Production Processes and Operations,"as part of the NSF/EPA jointly funded "Technology for a Sustainable Environment" Program. In this work, he determined that superheated water, an environmentally benign solvent, has tremendous potential for removing many persistent and toxic materials from soils, sediments, and other contaminated polymer-like matrices. Traditional degreasing agents, such as chlorinated organic solvents, are toxic to humans and the environment. Therefore, finding an alternative that is less hazardous is critical to the machinery industry.
In the late 1990's, Dr. Weber was also funded by the STAR program for a research project entitled, "A Comprehensive Investigation of the Effects of Organic Geochemistry on the Sorption-Desorption, Sequestration, and Bioavailability of Mixed Organic Contaminants in Subsurface Systems." In addition, from 1989 to 2002, he was Director of the Great Lakes/Mid-Atlantic Hazardous Substance Research Center, funded by EPA, the State of Michigan, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense. He was also the principal investigator of a subproject of the Research Center, called "Development and Verification of a Molecular Modeling Approach for Predicting the Sequestration and Bioavailability/Biotoxicity of Organic Contaminants by Soils and Sediments."
Before joining the faculty at Michigan in 1963, Dr. Weber was a postdoctoral research associate at Harvard University. He earned a PhD in1962 in Water Resources Engineering and an MA in Environmental Chemistry in 1961 from Harvard. He received an MSE in 1959 in Civil/Environmental Engineering from Rutgers University, and a ScB in 1956 in Chemical Engineering from Brown University.
Dr. Weber, elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1985, is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. He received the National Water Research Institute's Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize (1996), the Water Pollution Control Federation's Gordon Maskew Fair Medal (1990), the Association of Environmental Engineering Professors' Distinguished Lecturer Award (1990), the American Water Works Association's Academic Achievement Award (1989), the Governing Board of State Universities, State of Michigan's Distinguished Faculty Award (1989), the Association of Environmental Engineering Professors Outstanding Paper Award (1989), the Water Pollution Control Federation's Thomas R. Camp Medal (1988), the University of Michigan's Stephen S. Attwood Award for Engineering Excellence (1987), the International Association on Water Pollution Research and Control's Founder's Publication Award (1987), the American Society of Civil Engineers' G. Brooks Earnest Award (1985), the American Chemical Society's F.J. Zimmerman Award (1982), the Water Pollution Control Federation's Willard F. Shephard Award (1980), and the University of Michigan's Research Excellence Award (1980). Dr. Weber has authored or coauthored four books and more than 300 journal articles and book chapters.
For more information, contact Estella Waldman at waldman.estella@epa.gov.