AL Wastewater Treatment Operator CEH Requirements

The short version

If you hold one wastewater certificate in Alabama, you need 24 continuing education hours (CEH) in the wastewater field every three years.

If you hold more than one certificate, the math changes: 15 CEH per certificate, in the proper field for each. Alabama lets you hold one water certificate and one wastewater certificate, so a dual holder needs 15 water + 15 wastewater = 30 CEH total — six more hours than a single-certificate operator, split across two fields that don't share credit.

Your grade doesn't change the number. Wastewater Treatment Grades I through IV and Public Wastewater Collection Grade I(C) all owe the same hours.

The cycle and the deadlines

Certificates run three years. Training has to be completed within the three-year period before your expiration date — hours earned earlier don't count, except for carryover (below).

Two dates matter, and they're not the same date:

• 30 days before expiration — your complete renewal application has to be in ADEM's hands. Not postmarked on the expiration date. Thirty days early.
• 180 days after expiration — the outside limit for a late application, which costs a late fee. Between your expiration date and the day ADEM processes the late renewal, you may not practice as a certified operator.

One more thing worth knowing about late renewals: the new certificate is dated three years from your previous expiration date, not from the day it's processed. Renewing late doesn't buy you extra time on the back end — it just shortens the cycle you paid for.

What counts toward your 24 hours

All 24 have to be actual training in the wastewater field. A given course counts once per renewal period — retaking it next year doesn't earn it again.

Training can come from association or ADEM-sponsored short courses and seminars, college courses (taken or audited), approved correspondence and online courses, in-house or regional courses taught by experienced certified operators or qualified instructors, or from teaching any of the above.

Wastewater topics that count without a cap:

• Operation and maintenance of wastewater treatment plants and lagoons
• Operation and maintenance of public wastewater collection systems
• Treatment plant process control and theory
• Wastewater regulation reviews and updates
• New treatment plant technologies
• Anti-terrorism training geared to wastewater collection and treatment
• Equipment-specific training from factory reps or design professionals
• Sampling and analysis of wastewater
• Collection or treatment exam review
• Design calculations for collection or treatment
• Recordkeeping or reporting for collection or treatment

Topics that count, but only up to a limit per renewal period:

These are ceilings, not requirements. You could satisfy all 24 hours with core wastewater O&M training and never touch this table. But if you've been stacking safety courses because that's what your utility offers, check the caps before you assume you're covered.

What doesn't count at all:

• Regularly-scheduled safety meetings
• General management, business, or personnel law courses
• Repeated teaching of the same course without significantly updating it
• Committee meetings and other meetings that aren't educational
• Anything not directly relevant to the class of certificate you're renewing

Correspondence, in-house, video, audio, and online courses have to require evidence of achievement and completion, or a final graded test.

Carryover

You can carry a maximum of 10 CEH per certificate into the next three-year period. Overshooting your 24 by more than 10 is hours you don't get back.

Credit conversions

Records and audits — read this part

ADEM does not pre-approve courses. The regulation puts it on you to identify valid CEH classes appropriate to your grade. ADEM publishes a list of online training entities but states plainly that the links are informational only and that it takes no responsibility for the validity of those services.

You must obtain documentation of attendance from the instructor or sponsoring organization and keep it for at least three years after the certificate expires — so a certificate from year one of your cycle needs to survive roughly six years total. The renewal form has you affirm your listed hours are true and acknowledge you may be audited, and ADEM can require you to produce the documentation for audit verification at any time.

If ADEM disallows a credit you claimed, you have 180 days past expiration to substantiate the original claim or earn other hours to make up the shortfall. That's a tight window to go hunting for a course completion email from three years ago.

One more: if you fail a certification exam twice, you need 8 CEH in the matching discipline — wastewater CEH for a wastewater retest — earned after your last attempt, before you can sit for it a third time.

Where Alabama operators earn hours

• Alabama Rural Water Association (ARWA) — statewide in-person CEH classes and certification schools, plus online training. (334) 396-5511
• Alabama's Water Environment Association (AWEA) — workshops and exam prep; member pricing on courses
• Alabama Water Pollution Control Association (AWPCA) — annual Short Course and Conference, roughly 12 CEHs in one event
• Shelton State Community College (Tuscaloosa) — 60-hour Wastewater Treatment III–IV course, in person and online
• ACCS Skills for Success (trainforalabama.com) — state community-college system courses
• ADEM's list of online CEH providers — adem.alabama.gov/water/operator-certification/continuing-education

WaterCEU isn't a training provider and doesn't award hours. We're where you put the certificate after you've earned it.

Also worth knowing

ADEM moved operator certification onto a digital platform, OpCert Online, in March 2026 — renewals, payments, exam requests, and real-time continuing education tracking. One thing to understand about it: ADEM stated that no historical training records were migrated from the old databases, so the platform's view of your hours starts in March 2026. If your current three-year cycle began before that, hours you earned earlier are still owed and still count — but the proof of them is wherever you put it, not in OpCert Online. And regardless of the platform, 335-10-1-.10(11) still makes you personally responsible for obtaining and retaining course documentation for three years past expiration.

Source

ADEM Administrative Code, Division 335-10, Chapter 335-10-1, Rules 335-10-1-.10 (Continuing Education) and 335-10-1-.11 (Certificate Expiration and Renewal).

• Regulation text: https://adem.alabama.gov/sites/default/files/legacyfiles/alEnviroRegLaws/files/Division10.pdf
• ADEM Operator Certification program: https://adem.alabama.gov/water/opcert
• ADEM continuing education page: https://adem.alabama.gov/water/operator-certification/continuing-education
• ADEM Operator Certification, (334) 271-7796, ademopcert@adem.alabama.gov

Verified against the above on August 30, 2026.

WaterCEU is not affiliated with ADEM or any state board, is not a continuing education provider, and does not award hours. This page is a plain-language summary of a published regulation, not compliance or legal advice. Rules change — confirm your own requirements with ADEM before you rely on them.