Improving The View To Your Stormwater SCADA

By Chris Little

For many years, the Miami-Dade Stormwater Utility has been using Bristol Babcock controllers and proprietary HMI software to monitor and control a dozen remote sites across the county. When the hardware vendor discontinued support for this HMI, it became costly and time-consuming for the utility to create or modify graphic display pages. Additionally, the system offered no way to share real-time and historical stormwater information with authorized local municipalities and government agencies. The simple and least costly solution was to adopt a non-proprietary SCADA software that could regularly extract data directly from the existing SQL database via a built-in SQL driver. New screens were developed that could be used internally or easily shared with authorized users over the Internet. In this article, Nasif Alshaier describes the new SCADA system as well as the additions he made himself since its installation. These include embedded site maps with custom icons that change according to stormwater levels or rates of change.

The Miami-Dade Stormwater Utilility
Founded in 1991, the Miami-Dade Stormwater Utilility operates pump stations and canals across the county that help to prevent flooding and manage the environmental impact of stormwater contamination. Nasif Alshair is Computer Services Manager with the utility. He was part of the team that oversaw the creation of new SCADA system along with Alex Barios, Stormwater Section Head.