Page 33 - Water and Wastewater Engineering Design Principles and Practice
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1-4 WATER AND WASTEWATER ENGINEERING
FIGURE 1-1
American Society of Civil Engineers code of ethics.
matter, the education of environmental engineers is focused on these two issues. They will be
discussed in more detail at appropriate points in the remaining chapters.
The public “welfare” is not articulated in regulations, codes, and standards. It is comprised of
two parts: prosperity and happiness. The public prospers when the decisions of the professional
result in economical projects. The public is “happy” when their trust and reliance on the profes-
sional is justified by successful completion of a project.
Economical projects do not imply the cheapest project. Rather, they imply projects that
serve the client’s needs and satisfy the client’s elective options while conforming to regula-
tory constraints. In the classical engineering approach economical projects are achieved by
the following:
• Scoping of the engineering contract (Bockrath, 1986 and Sternbach, 1988).
• Economic analysis of alternatives (GLUMRB, 2003; WEF, 1991; WPCF, 1977).
• Selection of lowest responsible bidder (Bockrath, 1986) .
• Diligent inspection of the work in progress (Firmage, 1980) .