Hamilton received two awards for tasks monitoring stormwater and wastewater.
Nick Winters, the town’s head of water, describes the awards — issued by commerce publication Water Canada in August — as “recognition amongst our trade friends that there are good issues taking place in Hamilton.”
The town skilled high-profile water mishaps in recent times, such because the 2022 and 2023 discoveries of quarter-century-old leaks funnelling billions of litres of sewage instantly into Lake Ontario. It is also invested about $340 million in water therapy upgrades, and is trying towards an additional $1 billion in enhancements.
“There is a group inside Hamilton Water, and different metropolis applications as effectively, which might be fiercely dedicated to doing what’s finest for our neighborhood,” Winters informed CBC Hamilton. “Which means doing the proper factor and doing it on the lowest potential value.”
Drone-mounted sonar gives extra correct measurements
The primary challenge Water Canada acknowledged is a metropolis partnership with Mohawk School through which drone-mounted sonar scans assist decide when Hamilton’s stormwater ponds have to be drained.
The ponds, which seize and retailer runoff, acquire sediment and have to be dredged each 10-20 years, Winters stated. Commonplace follow has been to ship somebody out in a ship with a yardstick to measure a pond’s depth. Then, staff use a method to estimate the general depth and determine if a pond wanted to be dredged.
The issue with that, Winters stated, is it is pricey, time-consuming and infrequently insufficient to essentially calculate a big pond’s depth. In a typical 12 months, the town may plan to dredge three ponds, solely to “burn our whole price range” on the primary two as a consequence of an underestimation.
By flying over the ponds and utilizing sonar, Winters stated the town can take correct measurements and make life like plans.
He stated the partnership happened as a consequence of a “probability encounter” between a metropolis employee and somebody from Mohawk School.
Metropolis working with researchers at native faculty
“Adapting this know-how to unmanned methods permits trade companions to take sonar instrumentation into locations the place it’s neither secure nor possible to take a manned boat,” Cristina Gage, Mohawk School’s dean of utilized analysis, stated in an e mail.
She added that working with companions resembling the town helps researchers examine new applied sciences. The school has used the unmanned sonar tech on the 407 ETR and may use it with native conservation authorities too, she stated.
Corinne Lynds, a spokesperson for Water Canada, stated judging for the stormwater and wastewater classes was primarily based on a challenge’s “usefulness, innovation, environmental or social advantages, and its scalability.”
She stated the judges discovered the drone answer had potential to be copied elsewhere.
Robert Haller, the director of the Canadian Water and Wastewater Affiliation, describes what Hamilton and the faculty are doing as “innovative,” and famous he is seen an increase in drone-mounted tech at commerce reveals.
He stated this, and Hamilton’s different successful challenge, are “about doing the work that must be finished however not till it must be finished.”
The second challenge is the town’s ongoing effort to determine cross-connections in its sewage system — spots through which mixed or sanitary sewer pipes could also be incorrectly related to storm sewer pipes.
Such errors have been guilty for the long-term leak found in 2022 and prompted the town to start out proactively inspecting extra places.
WATCH | From 2022: Metropolis of Hamilton discovers 26-year leak of sewage into Hamilton Harbour
Metropolis of Hamilton discovers 26-year leak of sewage into Hamilton Harbour
The town of Hamilton says it has found sewage has been leaking into the Hamilton Harbour since 1996 due to a gap in a mixed sewage pipe within the industrial sector.
Searching for leaks
As of March 2023, workers had discovered three spills, the town web site says. Winters stated his staff will share an replace with metropolis council in November.
“We’ve not discovered any cross-connected sewers in 2024, which is an effective factor,” he stated.
He stated the February cyberattack on the town disrupted work as a result of staff misplaced entry to digital information, and there was a interval of a number of months through which they could not rent anybody new.
Metropolis staff typically hear residents’ issues about sewage spills firsthand, Winters stated.
For him, the award is “a recognition of Hamilton proudly owning the issue” and a “willingness to be clear,” as the town manages its getting older wastewater infrastructure.
Nick Winters is Hamilton’s director of water. (Justin Chandler/CBC)
Lynds stated judges have been most impressed by the challenge’s environmental advantages and the potential for it to be carried out by different municipalities.
Earlier than the challenge began, Winters stated, there was speak about whether or not Hamilton ought to proactively examine “all 2,200 kilometres” of the town’s wastewater system. That would not have been environment friendly or cost-effective, he stated, including that he believes the present program is.
It is seemingly Hamilton will proceed to seek out points because it searches, Haller stated, including the town has one of many oldest wastewater methods in Canada.
“There aren’t nice information from the previous,” he stated. “Quite a lot of time, the historical past and data of those methods went with the supervisor who put them in.”
“We’re retroactively making an attempt to restore historical methods,” Haller added. “However [Hamilton seems] to be tackling it very aggressively.”
