The future of water looks daunting with the ever-looming challenges of population growth, climate change, and failing infrastructure, but the future also includes technological advances that can help overcome these hard-to-solve issues. The key, explains Water Talk guest and digital technology consultant Gigi Karmous-Edwards, is to embrace our digital capabilities as they continue to develop. We are already in the age of smart water, but the majority of utilities are not taking advantage of the power of data for optimizing operations and informing decision-making. It is only when wide-scale implementation occurs that the digital transformation arrives. In the interview below, Karmous-Edwards explains the impact on the horizon.
The importance and utility of sensors for delivering precious drinking water — and beer — is of topic in this conversation with MJ Peters of Sensorex. The company provides UVT-LED sensors for monitoring UV transmittance, offering quality control for advanced treatment applications such as potable water reuse. One such application was the AZ Pure Water Brew Challenge, where recycled water was used to make beer.
The operating ranges for chemical injection need to be large because of the variability of flow in many treatment operations. As Bill McDowell, Vice President of Operations with Blue White Industries explains in this Water Talk interview, “You might be down to as low as 5 or 10 milliliters a minute and then one hour later; you might need to pump 15 gallons a minute out of the same pump and through the same sensor.”
Cloud-based monitoring and reporting was all the rage at WEFTEC 2017. Water Talk sat down with Tom Perry, National Product Manager with Veolia to discuss Aquavista, one of the more established technologies for capturing critical data, storing it in the cloud and allowing it to be accessed real time, 24/7 from any smart, web-enabled device.
With the ability to store mass amounts of data, real-time monitoring and the timely analysis of that data is spurring significant change in the water industry. As Rick Bacon, CEO of Aqua Metrology Systems, explains in this Water Talk interview, high frequency data is not only aiding in the battle to identify contamination but also in summarizing performance once a solution has been installed to fix it.
Back in 2014, Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals wrote an executive order for municipalities to boost their chlorine residuals as high as possible to burn off all biofilm and stop the outbreak of brain-eating amoeba (Naegleria fowleri) that had been detected as the cause of death in a number of individuals.
Is "smart water" living up to the hype? Can there be true impact without broad implementation? Even when technologies are in place, are utilities using smart water capabilities to their fullest extent? Water Online hosted Reese Tisdale, president of Bluefield Research, to answer these tough questions.
It makes sense that water regulations are written in line with the available means to detect contaminants. The same logic would suggest that as newer, more accurate diagnostic technologies become available, the list of MCLs and the depth of water regulations will continue to evolve.
There’s a lot of data floating around the water industry these days. SCADA, flow statistics, online monitoring, DO measurements, air flows, LIMS system data in the Lab, and CMMS data from maintenance software to name but a few.
Beyond measurement, Hach is on a mission to provide its customers with the information to make better decisions. Sam Utley, Vertical Market Manager for Wastewater with Hach, recently sat down with Water Online Radio to discuss the movement towards greater clarity in data collection and evaluation.
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