Renewing Your Wastewater License

This time of year, I always get questions from wastewater operators about the requirements for renewing their licenses for the next 2 year period and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. As a state approved instructor, I’m here to help you navigate all the forms and paperwork associated with having and keeping a wastewater operator’s license. If you’d prefer to watch a video instead, here’s the link to a video covering this material (https://youtu.be/iYTgE0NzfOE ). The video also covers the educational requirements. 

If you currently hold a wastewater operator’s license, you will be receiving a renewal notice shortly indicating that your license is up for renewal for the next 2 year period.  If you are currently INACTIVE and plan to stay that way, all you have to do is pay the renewal fee and submit the renewal form with your payment.  If you are inactive, I strongly recommend keeping your license because you’ve earned it!  If you hold an ACTIVE license, you have to pay the renewal fee plus you also have to provide proof that you have received 20 training contact hours (TCH’s) during the past two years. Obtaining TCH’s every 2 years ensures that active operators stay current with their training and education. If you’ve attended any NEIWPCC sponsored meetings, any state sponsored classes or events, or passed a licensing exam, those hours should appear on the back of your renewal form. You do not need to submit any further proof of the hours that already appear on your renewal form. 

If you received any TCH’s by taking private, state approved courses (like one of my courses for example) this information won’t appear on the renewal form, so it’s up to you to add this information to the back of the form.  You will need to include the state approved course number, the name of the course, and the number of TCH’s awarded for completing the course. Be sure to submit a copy of your certificate of completion from each course to receive credit.  You can easily recognize a state approved course because they includes a course number that starts with “BC” followed by the year the course was approved, followed by a four digit number assigned by the Mass Board of Certification (for example: BC-2010-9999).

There are restrictions on the type of courses that can be submitted for TCH’s.  Out of the 20 required TCH’s, at least 10 of those hours must be from “technical” state approved courses related to wastewater.  The remaining hours can be from other state approved courses that do not have to be related to wastewater.  In the past, NEIWPCC has allowed operators to submit training hours from courses that were not state approved, but the trend is toward only accepting TCH’s from state approved courses.  You may receive some fraction of the hours for these courses, but if it were up to me, I wouldn’t plan on getting any credit for courses that have not been state approved.       

If you are active and you don’t submit the required number of TCH’s, your license will expire and you’ll have to start all over again by taking and passing a licensing exam, at which time you would get a brand new license.  This happened to me once and it was really embarrassing because I happened to be the chief operator at a facility at the time.  Don't let this happen to you.