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Welcome to the Home of
the Best FREE Water and Wastewater
Certification Training Manuals in the
Country!
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Ragsdale and Associates have been providing the
best Water and Wastewater technical training
available in New Mexico, Arizona, California,
and Nevada since 1994. With over 30 years of
expertise in virtually all areas of water and
wastewater systems operations and maintenance,
we have developed a wide range of operator
training programs.
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Our training programs have received national
recognition for presentation and content. We do
not teach the answers to an exam. We will teach
you how to operate and maintain a water or
wastewater system safely and efficiently. In the
process, you will learn the information you
“Need-to-Know” to pass any state’s certification
exam.
Joplin
MO Tornado Recovery Effort |
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On May 22, 20011 an EF-5 tornado ripped through the town
of Joplin, MO. In a matter of 15 minutes 6,935
dwellings, a regional medical center, four schools, six
churches, and an estimated 25% of the businesses in this
town of 50,000 were destroyed. The pictures you may have
seen in the media, while both moving and graphic, cannot
begin to reflect the totality of the destruction that
occurred in the Blast Zone. The damage was spread over
600 city blocks, leaving behind 3 million cubic yards of
debris. In only fifteen minutes over 12,000 people were
left with no homes, cars, or anything but the clothes
they were wearing at 6:00pm that evening. The death toll
has risen to over 150 and over 1000 people were injured.
The initial damage estimates were over 3 billion
dollars.
It’s been 10 months since the tornado ravaged my
hometown. The debris is gone now. The old hospital and
high school are coming down. And a grateful community
gave thanks to over 120,000 volunteers who came to a
town, many of them had never seen, to help folks try and
put the broken pieces of their lives and their city back
together. Though the wound has been cleaned, it is by no
means healed. Over 500 people still live in a FEMA
trailer park outside of town. The school district needs
an additional $60 million dollars to rebuild the schools
that were destroyed. A thousand homes are being rebuilt,
but 7000 were lost. Many who lost their homes found that
their insurance coverage amounted to only a fraction of
what it will cost to replace them.
The people of Joplin will rebuild their scarred city,
but it will take years to complete. Businesses that were
lost are rebuilding and every new “Grand Opening” is a
city-wide celebration. The TV cameras are gone now, but
the work continues every day. RebuildJoplin.org has been
created to help distribute contributions to those in the
community who need it the most.
Please Make A Donation
We offer all of our training materials as free
downloads. Last year over 16 gigabytes of information
was downloaded (the equivalent of 2500 manuals). If you
feel that the information available here has helped you
get through an exam, or just made you a better operator,
we would ask that you consider making a contribution to
the Joplin recovery effort. You can help some of the
folks that need it the most. To donate click the “Joplin
Tornado Recovery” button on the left. In an interview
with a local radio station on the day after the storm, a
woman who had lost her home was asked what Joplin needed
most. Her answer was…”Remember us in three weeks” Thanx,
Rags…
Attention New Mexico Operators
Our
New Mexico ERG contract has been completed. We regret
that there is no more funding for free training in New
Mexico. We will continue to seek funding that will make
it possible for us to provide free training in the
future. We are, however, still committed to providing
training in New Mexico with registration fees that are
competitive with other training organizations' "Member's
Discount" prices. You can receive the best water and
wastewater training in New Mexico without having to pay
membership dues to get an affordable rate.
New*
Arizona Expense Reimbursement Grant Training
We are pleased to announce that we presenting two more
ADEQ ERG classes this spring. These classes are free for
operators from water systems under 3300 population.
Expense reimbursement is also available for qualified
operators. We will be presenting classes in Tucson in
May and Yuma in June. For more registration information
from ADEQ, please
click here.
New*
Arizona Classes For Water/Wastewater Certification
We will be scheduling more certification classes in
Arizona for this fall. The new class schedule will be
posted this summer. Please check back with us in July.
Are The Training Manuals Really Free?
We
would love for you to attend our training classes.
However, if you are a water or wastewater operator and
are not able to make our classes, you still need the
information contained in our training manuals. Our
primary business is providing classroom instruction. We
have decided to provide our material free of charge to
those operators that are unable to attend our classes.
Please feel free to download and print our books for
your own use. We only ask that do not sell or alter
them.
Practice Certification Exam Questions
We
have had a number of requests for answers to the sample
questions in our books. We don’t provide an answer sheet
because they are included to help direct you to the
information related to the certification exams. The
answers can be found, usually verbatim, in the text.
If
you would like to try some ABC practice test questions,
we would like to direct you to the ABC website. They
have prepared sample questions for each level of
certification. Once you log in, the test question
service is free. Click the “ABC Exam Questions” button
on the left. We love free stuff.
In our "Training Info" pages you can find:
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"Upcoming Training
Events" in New Mexico and Arizona.
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Water Systems
Operators Manual
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Wastewater Systems
Operators Manual
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New Mexico Water
Sampling Technician Certification Study Guide
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Technical O&M
information on Water Wells, Pumps and Control Valves
Our
“Water System Operators Manual” has been recently
updated. It contains over 240 pages of text
(60,000+words) and dozens of diagrams, color pictures,
and new study questions. It includes comprehensive
coverage of ABC “Need-To-Know” criteria for water
systems treatment and distribution systems operator
certification for Levels 1 through 4.
Our
“Wastewater System Operators Manual” covers material for
wastewater treatment systems and wastewater collection
systems operator certification. It is also compliant
with ABC "need to know" criteria. The study guide
consists of over 180 pages of information with color
pictures, diagrams, and new study questions covering the
ABC certification issues for Levels 1 through 4.
The
“New Mexico Water Sampling Certification Study Guide”
covers water systems sampling procedures for
microbiological and chemical monitoring and compliance
sampling. It is based on NMDOH-SLD procedures but is
also EPA compliant and, with the exception of the
NMDOH-SLD sampling forms, should be usable in other
states. |
