Turkmenistan water official visits MWRD

Arslan Rejepov, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Water Resource Management and student of Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan, interpreter Marina Slavina, and Maria Krasinski, Youth and Professional Programs Manager for WorldChicago, visited the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) to learn about water reclamation processes and how the Chicago area waterways operate. Commissioner Debra Shore, Catherine O’Connor, director of engineering, Jim Yurik, canal operations engineer, and Tom Fitzgerald, systems dispatcher, provided insight into the MWRD’s waterways operations.

“WorldChicago connects visiting professionals from other countries with experts in their fields here in Chicago. We came to learn about the city’s water and wastewater so this was a very interesting session,” said Krasinski. “The MWRD is known for developing technologies that are used around the world, and Turkmenistan is looking to find creative ways of collecting and reusing water from the wastewater process since their citizens live in what is essentially a desert.”

In fact, the country is located in the Karakum Desert in Central Asia. Turkmenistan borders Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea, which is salt water, not freshwater.

“We appreciate the opportunity to host visitors from other countries,” said Commissioner Shore. “We learn from one another and share best practices. We all benefit from these interactions.”

Facility tours are available by contacting 312-751-6633 or emailing public.affairs@mwrd.org. More information can be found online at www.mwrd.org.

Established in 1889, the MWRD (www.mwrd.org) is an award-winning, special purpose government agency responsible for wastewater treatment and stormwater management in Cook County, Illinois.

Our water environment...Take it personally!