Danny O’Connell
Senior Compliance Specialist
The operation and maintenance of water and wastewater utilities requires a clear understanding of the diverse variables unique to each facility. I enjoy interfacing with utilities operations and management teams to evaluate these variables and help create conditions or approaches that enable water treatment and management systems to perform at their highest efficiencies.
Danny O’Connell has over 40 years’ experience in water and wastewater utility compliance and industrial wastewater pretreatment programs, including design, development, implementation, administration, and evaluation. Over the course of his career, he has worked for consulting engineers, the City of Houston’s Wastewater Division, the Texas Department of Water Resources, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, an international private water/wastewater company, United Water, and (as a consultant) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice.
He has evaluated the operation and maintenance of over three hundred POTW collection and treatment systems and monitored compliance of hundreds of POTWs and their industrial users. He has conducted many drinking water sanitary surveys and water system evaluations in the western United States and Guam. He has supported the development and implementation of water-related environmental programs across the nation. This work has included development of standard operating procedures; monitoring of industrial wastewaters; site inspections; data tracking and analysis; estimating wastewater treatment capital, operation, and maintenance costs; assessment of best management practices and pollution prevention approaches and technologies; and development and delivery of training programs (including the training of EPA inspectors working on credential certifications). At PG Environmental (a division of ERG), he manages NPDES and Safe Drinking Water Act compliance and technical assistance work.
Danny is a certified water (distribution and treatment) and wastewater (collections and treatment) operator; a California-certified Environmental Compliance Inspector and Industrial Waste Treatment Operator; and an EPA-credentialed Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act Inspector. He holds a B.S. in biology from Bowling Green State University.