The post The power of lateral thinking: How new groundwater solutions are producing big results appeared first on The Source.
]]>There is an old saying in the Anglo-Saxon world that “a stitch in time saves nine” – i.e. a relatively simple alteration today avoids more intensive repairs or replacements farther down the line.
This certainly applies to groundwater systems, as municipalities, water boards and other network owners are increasingly finding out. In Norwood, a town of 28,000 located just south of Boston, USA, Trelleborg’s pipe seals operation played a key role in resolving the town’s drain system issues before they escalated beyond control, working under the direction of consulting engineer CDM Smith Inc.
How to fix a problem like leakage?
Norwood had been experiencing problems with both exfiltration and inflow and infiltration (I&I). The town had an under-drain system located below the existing sewer network. As the network started to age – and to fail – sewerage began leaking from the pipes and into the under-drain system. This effluent was contaminating the local groundwater and waterways. In fact, the EPA recorded E.coli bacteria counts in the range of 5,000 to 50,000 MPN/100ML.
Additionally, during wet weather events, the groundwater had been entering the sewer network, overloading the municipality’s treatment plants due to unnecessary treatment of this “clear water”. Norwood also recorded sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) during certain rain events event caused by excessive infiltration.
The quantities for each subarea varied, but total quantities for the three subareas were approximately 27,600 ft of mainline, 185 manholes and 490 of laterals to be rehabilitated per subarea.
A seamless solution
Fixing the problem would be complex, as a high proportion of the lateral connections were break-in connections that entered the main pipe at various angles. Access was also an issue; many of the surrounding property lots were large and a house could sit far back in its lot, resulting in a long lateral length of about 40 ft on average, and 100 ft in some cases. Norwood, under advisement from CDM, instructed the lateral pipe to be cleaned, inspected and relined from the main sewer pipe. All while minimizing disruption to private property.
A unique challenge called for a unique solution. Until recently, the focus of sanitary sewer rehabilitation has primarily been on relining the main sewer pipe manhole to manhole and sealing the manhole structures. Laterals are reinstated and groundwater is allowed back into the system.
Lateral pipes have often been overlooked as a solution because of the complex nature of this approach. This is where Trelleborg’s expertise in lateral pipe seal solutions comes in. The contractor carrying the maintenance and rehabilitation of the pipes, National Water Main Cleaning Co., deployed the newly evolved and developed Trelleborg Main to House (MtH) system with its capability of lining lateral of lengths up to 100 ft without a cleanout.
The tip of the iceberg
The results speak for themselves. In later assessments, the EPA recorded that Norwood’s bacteria levels had dropped dramatically and were close to zero. Many months on, the town’s ‘seamless’ sewer system has virtually eliminated the town’s contamination issue, substantially reduced infiltration into the sanitary sewer and has provided a ‘new’ sewer system right to the front door of local taxpayers.
However, Norwood’s story is just the tip of the iceberg. As groundwater systems age, problems such as sewer overflows and leakages will become increasingly common. Because of this, the EPA has issued a nationwide consent decree for reducing water pollution and I&I across the United States, with municipalities required to comply with the new standards by 2023.
The excellent outcome enjoyed by this small New England community demonstrates that, with the right solution, groundwater issues can be resolved quickly and affordably. These issues will only worsen over time, so there’s no time like the present.
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]]>The post How IoT and Data Are Helping Utilities appeared first on The Source.
]]>“Smart utilities” manage their assets using automated devices that enable the collection and analysis of data on usage, flow rates, water quality, pressure, leakage and more. This enables them to take intelligent action that can reduce costs and deliver the best service to their customers.
Here are some of the latest smart water technologies in automatic meter infrastructure (AMI), remote shutoff, leak detection and automated flushing from Mueller Water Products.
Mi.Net® System Helps Utilities Become Smarter
The Mi.Net system links service connections, distribution sensors and control devices, in a technology ecosystem for real-time access and control. Designed to LoRa open architecture standards that enables data to travel faster and further, the Mi.Net platform gathers hourly usage data from every meter in the network. The unique differentiator of Mi.Net is its ability to enable smart city infrastructure which allows utilities to install any IoT device regardless of manufacturer or equipment type.
Data from equipment installed throughout the distribution system communicates across Mi.Net to alert utilities of leaks, bursts or other emergent conditions, allowing them to efficiently allocate resources.
Remote Meter Connect/Disconnect Technology Delivers Operational Savings
The 420 RDM contains a remote disconnect valve, which is integral to the 5/8-inch residential meter. Utilities can use this feature to directly manage their water services from the utility office. The unique quality of the 420 RDM is the integral valve that allows the utility to upgrade to remote disconnect by simply installing the meter into the existing standard 7.5-inch service. The RDM works seamlessly with Mi.Net and receives prompts from the Mi.Net user interface when action is needed.
When the utility identifies a condition requiring valve activation, the system works as easily as clicking a mouse to disconnect or reconnect the water service as needed. When reports come in via Mi.Net that indicate unexpected excess flows, service representatives can respond quickly and shut off valves remotely saving water loss and property damage, without dispatching a maintenance crew.
EchoShore®-DX Technology Automates Leak Detection for Smart Utilities
The EchoShore-DX leak detection platform provides daily monitoring of a water distribution system. It looks for existing or emerging leaks using acoustical sensor nodes fitted within a standard fire hydrant pumper nozzle cap. The nodes are intelligent with the ability to detect the presence of small leaks in their zones of deployment. They can also communicate with each other and the central collection hub. Each node establishes an accurate acoustical baseline for its respective monitoring zone, ensuring detection of leaks that may develop in the future. Data is collected via radio frequency or cellular networks, allowing for near real-time data analysis. The user interface is highly intuitive, providing reports at the start of each day.
The EcoShore-DX system is scalable and migratable. Targeted deployments can be done with cellular networks, so smaller utilities without full AMI capabilities can still experience the data benefits. If the utility adds more sensors, it can seamlessly transition to the Lora network.
Automated Flushing Systems Provide Higher Water Quality Consistency
For smart cities, automatic flushing systems enable utilities to program their water distribution flushing schedules, lowering labor and operational costs as well as improving consistency of water quality. Hydro-Guard® products flush distribution systems when water demands are low, or when residual levels are below pre-determined levels. Several water quality conditions can be monitored, including chlorine, pH, temperature, turbidity and flow rate. Monitoring dead ends in the water distribution system allow utilities to be proactive rather than rely on customer complaints regarding water quality.
The Hydro-Guard system is also available with pressure sensors, giving water utilities a real-time pressure monitoring solution throughout their distribution systems. Using local cellular networks, sensors continually report data and alert the utility when high or low-pressure thresholds are exceeded.
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]]>The post Thames Water hit with £120 million penalty over leakages appeared first on The Source.
]]>This follows an investigation by the UK’s water watchdog, Ofwat, which found that the utility’s board did not have sufficient oversight and control of the company’s leakage performance.
“High leakage creates unnecessary strain on the environment, excess costs for customers and increased risk of water shortages,” said Rachel Fletcher, Chief Executive, Ofwat. “A well-run water company will have a good understanding of the condition of its pipes and will be able to reduce leakage over time.”
The £65 million payment to customers is on top of £55 million in automatic penalties incurred by the company for missing the commitment it made to customers to cut leaks. Each customer will get a total rebate of approximately £15 over the next two years.
Ofwat has set all water companies a target of bringing down leakage by at least another 15 percent up to 2025 and expects further reductions beyond this date.
“We met our leakage targets for a decade but our recent performance has not been good enough,” explained Steve Robertson, CEO, Thames Water. “We let our customers down and for that we’re sorry. We have taken more control of how we manage the network and are investing significantly more in people and resources to tackle leakage, get back on track and then go beyond.”
As part of the proposed settlement, the company has committed to getting its leakage performance back in line with what it has promised it will deliver for its customers in 2019-20. It will also publish its performance each month in tackling leaks, appoint an independent monitor to certify the information in its monthly leakage reports, and do more to engage with customers on leakage issues–including at its board.
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]]>The post What leaks reveal appeared first on The Source.
]]>By James Workman
Government and business are increasingly obsessed with information leaks.
The tech company Apple fears leaks about products and labour practices have damaged its reputation. Global financiers set out to stop Panama’s high-level leaks that embarrassed presidents and prime ministers in Russia, UK, Pakistan, Ukraine and Iceland. A wiki-website makes devastating leaks public. And while all heads of state want to plug persistent leaks, none have done so more obsessively than US President Donald Trump, who has tripled investigations into “criminal” leaks that “threaten lives” and sought to deploy massive electronic surveillance to detect every silent trickle.
If only such zeal were applied to global water systems that annually leak 32 billion cubic metres of water.
Totally different assets, you say? Actually, when you compare real water losses with unwanted data disclosures, the parallels are illuminating and instructive.
Whether intentional or otherwise, both kinds of leaks risk lives. Both embarrass authorities. Both share a history of misguided attempts to measure the extent of the problem. In both cases, agents resent leak detection as dull and inconclusive, compared with shiny new projects. Recently, a US Justice Department Inspector-General complained that finding and fixing leaks are “not fun investigations to be on. They’re notoriously difficult to solve, and they soak up so many resources.” Water professionals would nod in agreement.
Every water district is a microcosm of governance, and leaks are symptoms of systemic weakness. “Leakage is probably the most important single indicator of the efficiency of water utilities,” notes a recent EC report, noting how high losses “exert a strong pressure on the political decision makers.”
Conversely, experience from efficient water systems can help insecure men like Trump address the root causes and consequences of leaks.
First, worry is warranted, as leaks do increase national security risks. Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela tend to suffer high water loss, while Singapore, Japan and Denmark report the lowest. Leaks are both a symptom and cause of unstable and weak states.
But don’t blame external threats. Leaks tend to result from internal imbalances, worsened as power concentrates at the centre and gets unevenly distributed to citizens through an equitable system. As water professionals know, pressure management goes a long way toward reducing leaks.
Third, leaks arise when and where you least expect them. A seep becomes a trickle in the dead of night, when public taps and toilets are most idle. To avoid sporadic spikes, it helps to anticipate demand and respond by spreading out the asset in a steady, reliable, 24/7 flow. Likewise, leaks are the classic “squeaky wheel” crying out for care and attention in the poorest, most neglected parts of a system.
Precious assets demand constant circulation. When authorities forget the social contract is a two-way street, leaks expose hypocrisy. Trump, notorious for leaking privy information to reporters off the record, grows apoplectic when staff follow his lead. Shameful, right? But how many waterworks penalise customers for retail losses while ignoring wholesale leaks on their own side of the meter?
Fifth, working ad hoc in the dark can prove dangerous. In 1971, US President Richard Nixon brought in “plumbers” to plug White House leaks, a covert operation that led to his career-ending Watergate scandal. Water professionals develop transparent plans that collaboratively ask: how much is leaking, where, why, and what holistic measures can address it in an economically sustainable way?
When facing infinite leaks, prioritise. While it’s tempting to ‘clean house’, replacing all assets is a slow, costly, debilitating process. Few leaks are big, visible, and publicly humiliating; yet many smaller, hidden ones can undermine the system’s integrity.
That said, there are few absolutes. Accept that some loss is inevitable, perhaps even healthy, as it indicates strong demand for transactive f lows. Extensive distribution–by population or range–deserves a bit more tolerance. A large system with zero leakage is not ideal. It’s dystopian.
Ultimately, leaks reveal a breach of trust. Never ignore the trickling of contained and valuable assets, but don’t overreact, either. In governance and waterworks, authorities that manage leaks effectively can rebuild and maintain the healthy, resilient bonds between the natural monopolies they run and the people they serve.
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]]>The post Frackanomics: Why markets ensure oil and water can mix appeared first on The Source.
]]>Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as it is commonly known, is a divisive and controversial issue, in large part because of its perceived effects on supplies of fresh water.
Opposing sides even fight over how to spell the word: worried environmentalists always insert a “k” while the oil and gas industry prefers a “c” (“fracing”). By either spelling, the ‘hydraulic’ part of fracturing gives rise to three problems: the access, disposal, and transport of water.
Yet while the politics of fracking grow stale, entrepreneurs are quietly moving beyond conflict to figure out new ways not only to solve these three old problems, but also to create new opportunities.
Fracking is actually a suite of novel hydraulic fracturing techniques along with directional and horizontal drilling. Combined together they enable producers to extract oil and natural gas profitably from geologic formations like shale deposits once considered too poor to sustain commercial drilling. Producers have expanded into new parts of the United States, many that had rarely if ever seen the industry.
Cities and rural areas alike have experienced a drilling boom. Drilling brought more production, first of natural gas, later of oil. But the increased productivity has also brought controversy over environmental implications, and at the forefront of those concerns is water.
As the name suggests, hydraulic fracturing relies on water–specifically a water-based slurry that is injected into the well. At high enough pressure, the water creates small fractures in the surrounding rock. The injected fluid contains grains of sand that prop open these fractures, and allow molecules of natural gas and oil to migrate out of the rock, to the wellbore and then up to the surface.
Some of that injected fluid comes back to the surface after the pressure is released, often over the course of several days or weeks. That water is called flowback. Other water that naturally occurs with the gas and oil deposits may also come to the surface over the course of time while the well produces. That water is called produced water.
We can lump concerns or stylised facts about water and fracking into two categories: quantity and quality. Quantity concerns centre on the notion that, given finite limits to the natural resource, oil and gas interests will buy up all of the water in regions where lots of drilling occurs. That sort of spending spree would endanger other uses–including agricultural, domestic, and environmental.
Fracking jobs on wells vary in terms of the size of their thirst–some might use one million gallons of water while others use eight or ten times as much. Where water is scarce, that demand from oil and gas can appear daunting. Yet while a million gallons sounds like a lot to have to drink in a single setting, in most places the incremental demand is quite modest relative to existing uses (those million gallons may produce 600 pounds of beef or 500 gallons of milk).
The other major concern is that fracking will degrade water quality. The most insidious concern is that fluids injected into wells to fracture the gas- and oil-bearing rock will contaminate groundwater. While the costs of proving such contamination are very high, the notion of injecting secret chemicals into the ground has captured the public’s imagination. Halliburton has proved to be an unsympathetic antagonist, yet for all the worry, no cases of subsurface contamination have been definitively proven.
Yet far less attention has been paid to produced water–management of which is actually
a major concern for the industry. Surface spills and leaking pipelines don’t attract headlines, but are far more frequent than subsurface anomalies. The fact that produced water is often extremely saline and can contain other contaminants like heavy metals or naturally-occurring radioactive material only increases the importance of sound handling practices.
Rhetoric aside, modern oil and gas fracking operations raise three related but distinct issues around water: securing it, disposing it, and transporting it, which entrepreneurs must address.
Procurement of large amounts of fresh water is a relatively new problem, because conventional oil and gas production was never all that thirsty. Then, once wells are constructed and production begins, operations must dispose of large volumes of produced water. This is a relatively old problem because water is frequently produced with oil and gas. Last, the logistics of water supply and demand require moving large quantities of water, both in relatively fresh and contaminated states. Water is heavy and expensive to move around, so small gains in transport can have dramatic effects on water usage.
Reducing costs
Entrepreneurs are discovering how to integrate these three issues in new ways, reducing costs, time, and environmental risks.
Procurement often depends on transport. For example, in western North Dakota where the Bakken shale has proven to be an important source of shale oil, a producer might pay US$0.10 a barrel (42 gallons) for water at the wellhead. But depending on distance between source and place of use, transport expenses run much higher, and the delivered cost of 1 million barrels could run to as much as US$1 million.
Procurement issues are simplest in places where water is privately owned and many sellers and buyers can form a marketplace. Texas is the leading example, where private landowners can pump and sell water, and firms broker water between owners and oil and gas producers.
Disposal typically uses injection wells. Hyper-saline brine that was once dumped into surface waters is now injected deep underground, far from potable supplies. While eliminating discharge of highly saline water into surface water improves environmental outcomes, it is not without impacts. Large-volume injection has been linked to induced seismicity in Oklahoma and Ohio, where more earthquakes have been cited as an unintended consequence of fracking. Fracking itself does not cause the earthquakes; the risk comes from injecting large volumes of wastewater along unmapped faults, long after the fact.
But from these problems, opportunity has arisen. Rather than procure and transport water expensively from a distant source, only to then at further cost dispose of produced water somewhere else, fracking operations are finding ways to link supply and demand at the same location and closing the loop in a marketplace of water.
At that point, transport issues then centre around mundane issues associated with moving large volumes of water. Producers increasingly rely on temporary infrastructure in the form of above-ground pipelines rather than tanker trucks. Not only does this reduce truck traffic, a major source of aggravation for local residents, but it also provides operational benefits, bringing down the cost and price to the consumer.
From a single source facility, temporary pipelines can provide real- time servicing of fracking jobs and flowback water. When developers move on to new sites, the pipelines can go with them.
The opportunity for inexpensive and abundant energy supplies is one of the benefits of fracking. New issues for water sourcing, disposal, and transport are being rapidly overcome by innovators using the forces of supply and demand to reallocate water to new uses.
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]]>The post Pipe manufacturers set to cash in on US water market, says new report appeared first on The Source.
]]>Pipe and hardware companies are poised to benefit from heightening concerns about US municipal water infrastructure with US$300 billion of forecasted capital expenditures over the next decade, according to a new report from Bluefield Research.
The report, US municipal pipe markets: trends, opportunities and a changing competitive landscape in water, forecasts that new and replaced pipe and hardware infrastructure will make up more than 57 percent of municipal utilities’ total capital spend until 2026.
“The public does not want to think, or even know, about the [2.5 million kilometres] of pipes underground, but hundreds of thousands of water main breaks and lead-tainted water have begun to put a spotlight on this historically overlooked sector,” said Reese Tisdale, President of Bluefield Research. “In fact, the average age of water pipes continues to climb–from 25 years in 1970 to 45 years in 2020–largely because of underinvestment.”
While municipal demand for pipe solutions, is expected to grow going forward, the pipe sector’s material profile, for water and wastewater, is also being reshaped. The report identifies that new spending by utilities and engineering firms has a strong preference for plastic pipes–PVC and HDPE–which account for US$97 billion of the ten- year total. The trend highlights the continued growth of these materials, largely because of cost.
Bluefield also identifies that the scale of investment going into upgrading pipe networks is already driving more innovative, smarter solutions to stay ahead of rising costs. Over US$2.7 billion will be directed towards asset condition assessment and pipeline monitoring through 2026, while operating expenditures on leakage management, alone, will total US$1 billion through the forecast period.
“Replacing water pipes is extremely labour intensive and costly, so utilities will increasingly be forced to look for ways to squeeze costs with more cost-effective materials, installation techniques, such as trenchless technologies, and network analysis,” said Tisdale. “Certainly adoption will take time but innovative solutions are in front of them.”
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