On May 10th, 2023, the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Ontario (ACEC -Ontario) hosted their 20th annual Ontario Engineering Project Awards (OEPA), for the Ontario engineering community. Eramosa was the proud recipient of two awards of distinction for the Mine Remediation Cloud SCADA Integration project and the Electrical Power Studies & Arc Flash Models for Multiple Wastewater Facilities project.
Eramosa is honored to be recognized amongst our peers in the Ontario engineering community.
ES&E Magazine sat down with Toronto Water and CIMA+ to discuss the City’s incredible diversity, and how asset management is benefiting from, and supporting, diverse organizations and Canada’s water sector.
(left to right) Brian Sudic, Vanessa Chau, and Troy Briggs with CIMA+, and William Fernandeswith the City of Toronto, recently spoke with ES&E Magazine about developments in diversity,equity and inclusion, and asset management in the water sector.
It is fitting that a world-class city such as Toronto should host the American Water Works Association’s Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE) in 2023, and the International Water Association’s World Water Congress and Exposition in 2024. Not only is Toronto the country’s largest city, with a population of approximately 3 million, it is also one of the most diverse. Just under half of the city’s residents are immigrants and just over half—52%— are visible minorities.
“Diversity, Our Strength” is the motto of the City of Toronto, and this diversity is reflected in the hardworking professionals who manage the treatment plants and infrastructure that delivers over 1 billion litres of safe, clean drinking water each day to sustain the city and surrounding communities.
“In any organization, the biggest strength is the people—without a doubt,” said William Fernandes, director of water treatment and supply for Toronto Water, during our discussion. “You can’t do anything without people, and therefore our employees are the most important part of Toronto Water.”
Yet, while people are the greatest asset of any organization, especially one responsible with protecting public health and the environment, Toronto Water does have millions of physical assets to manage, and it is required to draw up Asset Management Plans to ensure the life cycle of everything from pumps to valves, and buildings to pipelines, is maximized.
Vanessa Chau belatedly presenting her long-time mentor William Fernandes with the 5S Society’s Golden Shovel. Fernandes was inducted into the society in 2018.
Canada is one of only a few countries in the world to have mandated asset management planning and is recognized by the global community as a leader in this field.
Under Ontario Regulation 588/17 “Asset Management Planning for Municipal Infrastructure”, municipalities across the province are required to have Asset Management Plans (AMPs) in place in order to qualify for infrastructure funding and adhere to the regulation, and importantly, ensure the investments of tax payers are respected. “Essentially at its core, the Asset Investment/Management Plan is for evidence-based decision-making,” said Vanessa Chau, P.Eng., MIAM, CAMA, senior director – asset management advisory at CIMA+, and the founding member of Asset Management Ontario.
“COVID-19 accelerated the pace and need for asset management and investment planning to stretch each dollar and make sure that water treatment plants and other critical assets are maintained and have their service lives extended,” added Chau.
No matter the size, municipalities across Canada face challenges developing and updating AMPs, whether due to a lack of resources, the scale and complexity of their infrastructure, or even keeping up with best practices and developments.
As a result, municipalities and utilities rely on consultants to bring in outside expertise, while leveraging global best practices such as ISO 55000 and resources to assist with asset management planning.
One such consultant is CIMA+, a growing Canadian consulting engineering firm, that works extensively with Toronto Water and many other municipalities and utilities.
“We work in partnership with our municipal clients and no matter what the size, it is a true partnership,” said Troy Briggs, executive vice president of infrastructure at CIMA+. “This allows us to bring solutions that consider clients’ site-specific needs and make sure that we are providing a sustainable, value-added approach, and not just a cookie cutter.” By doing this, consultants help clients leverage those assets for many years to come so that the needs of growing communities can be met.
CIMA+, as a recognized corporate member of the global Institute of Asset Management (IAM) is also involved with water and wastewater industry associations. This includes the Ontario Water Works Association, where they are currently working to develop standards that can help smaller municipalities tackle some of the more complicated issues.
“We are constantly trying to give back and help smaller municipalities keep up with changing technology,” said Brian Sudic, vice president of infrastructure – Ontario, at CIMA+.
As the water and environment industry changes, so is the makeup of its workers and member companies, who are recognizing the importance and benefits of supporting diversity initiatives.
Engineering, which has long been primarily a male-dominated field, has seen increasing numbers of female engineering students and professionals in recent decades.
However, according to Engineers Canada, men still “vastly outnumber women in engineering” and the organization has set a goal of raising the percentage of newly licensed female engineers to 30% of the total by 2030.
Chau is a contemporary trailblazer who has helped narrow the gender gap in engineering. She was one of the youngest female inductees into the prestigious Select Society of Sanitary Sludge Shovellers (5S) and was the youngest Water Environment Federation (WEF) delegate to represent Canada.
Recently, she was the only founding member of the IAM – Women in Asset Management – North American board, and she has been nominated to become the Canadian liaison for the IAM’s diversity and inclusion committee.
The IAM is a global association that will be holding its first North American conference in Toronto this October. Chau will also become one of the first “mentors” of the IAM’s global mentorship program.
Chau recalls her experiences as a young professional in the industry and how important it was to have mentors there for support.
“You can imagine that being a young person, it was very, very daunting,” said Chau. “So, mentors like William [Fernandes] and others of the 5S Society who were there for me, and able to guide me, were extremely important.”
Based on her personal experiences and knowledge from working both in Canada and internationally, Chau stresses that mentorship is integral to diversity, equity and inclusion action plans.
“Especially as a female in the water and wastewater industry, it is critical that we have mentors that have always been there to give us the allyship, sponsorship and guidance, in order for us to succeed,” said Chau.
At an organizational level, CIMA+ is working towards gender parity at all levels of the company to overcome this gender gap, and to deliver better service and expertise to its clients as a result.
In recognition of this, CIMA+ recently achieved bronze certification from the Women in Governance Organization, becoming the first engineering consultant in North America to do so, noted Sudic.
While gender is a key aspect of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), it is important to note that diversity extends beyond gender, and includes race, differences in age, physical and mental abilities, and more. Everything that makes up a person lends experience and insight that can improve how organizations are run, and how services are delivered.
For organizations that recognize the benefits of encouraging DEI but do not know where to begin, our group discussion noted some small steps that are easy to take and may offer big results.
These include, but are not limited to: increase women’s representation in leadership development; set targets to internship programs; advertise job openings to specific under-represented groups who may not be aware of them; broaden interview stages to include qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds; and include social and diversity requirements in procurement criteria.
Tying it all together, Fernandes says that asset management and diversity efforts go hand in hand, as both are investments into an organization’s most important resources and tools, and furthermore, help to shape the public sector so that it reflects the public it serves.
“Assets are not just equipment,” said Fernandes. “Assets are humans, and that is where diversity and inclusion come in.” This sentiment is not unique to Toronto Water or even to Canada. According to Chau, who has spoken at numerous global asset management conferences, the international community agrees that people are at the heart of any successful asset management transformation program and outcomes.
“At its core, for any asset management transformation program to be successful, people are the most critical asset,” said Chau. “It is really about people and diversity, and innovative thinking.”
Peter Davey is the Managing and Online Editor of ES&E Magazine. Email peter@esemag.com
Artificial intelligence. Machine learning Decision support tools. Smart automation. Real time controls Advanced automation. Digital twins. These are terms that are becoming more and more common in our industry. Jon explains digital twins and more in the WEAO Influents Winter 2022/2023 issue focusing on machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Engineering Software. Read the full article here: www.kelmanonline.com
Learn about advanced automation and connectivity for First Nations communities and small utilities in the WEAO Influents Spring 2023 issue focusing on First Nations engineering and initiatives to improve water/wastewater in isolated communities. Read the full article here:
Eramosa is pleased to announce that our very own David Chamberlain has been elected to the ACEC Board in Ontario!
The Association of Consulting Engineering Companies promotes and advances the business interests of their member companies and the value of the engineering work they do. Dave has been active at the local Grand River chapter level for years and we are thrilled to see him elected to the ACEC Ontario board!
The Region of Waterloo Cogeneration Facilities project wins the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies Ontario Diamond Award of Merit 2022 at the Grand River Chapter Annual General Meeting and Awards. Eramosa was proud to be part of the Jacobs and CIMA team that successfully delivered this project.
The project included the design and construction services for the installation of cogeneration facilities at the Regions three largest WWTPs: Kitchener, Waterloo and Galt. These facilities combust digester gas to produce electricity and heat which reduces carbon dioxide and emissions while providing green energy. The total capital cost for the cogeneration project for all three facilities was approximately $23 mil. Eramosa was responsible for the instrumentation & control design of the facilities.
Eramosa continues working with Atlantic First Nations Water Authority (AFNWA) with being awarded the development of SCADA standards for water and wastewater facilities. The SCADA standards will include standard PLC control panel designs, standard network architecture designs, development of standard PLC base programs and HMI applications, as well as associated documentation and testing.
The SCADA standards will promote consistency in design and implementation across all the facilities and facilitate ease of remote monitoring and control. This comes out of the SCADA Master Plan that Eramosa completed for the AFNWA in 2021 and will be an integral part of the AFNWA’s water and wastewater design standards for future projects and upgrades.
We are pleased and excited to be working on this project and continuing to build our relationship with the AFNWA and the communities in Atlantic Canada.
In May 2017, the Schomberg water Treatment Plant lost filtration capacity due to unexpected failure of one of three pressure filter trains and the plant struggled to maintain system demands. The Region replaced the filter media and retested the filters, however flows were reduced due to the limitations of the filter process to less than 50% capacity. While system demands were now satisfied, the Region considered the security of the water supply for the community to be at risk. There was a need to increase capacity and redundancy to allow for greater optimization and ongoing maintenance.
Temporary mobile filtration trailers were commissioned to provide the needed capacity, redundancy and water quality to complete the necessary upgrades including: replacement of the filer media, reconfiguring the filter underdrains, replacement and optimization of the oxidation system, replacement and modification of the valves and piping, updating the instrumentation, and reprogramming of the water treatment plant process control logic. Over the next several months, the temporary filters were carefully monitored, the existing plant filters removed from service, and upgrading and restoration of the original treatment plant began. All upgrades were implemented in 2018 and 2019 including rigorous commissioning and site acceptance testing for more than three months. After final testing and commissioning, the plant filters were officially put back in to service in November 2019 and the temporary filters phased out by March 2020. Eramosa provided SCADA programming services for the water treatment plant process control logic and assisted in the commissioning and testing of the upgrades.
We are very pleased to share that the Region of York’s Schomberg Water Treatment Plant Emergency Filter Rehabilitation Project has been selected as the Ontario Public Works Association’s (OPWA) 2020 Project of the Year for Emergency Construction between $2-$10 Million. See the presentation here.
The Alloa Reservoir and Pumping Station is located north of Mayfield Road and west of Creditview Road in the Town of Caledon. The Alloa facility will be the final reservoir and pumping station on the western transmission system, fed by the Lorne Park Water Treatment Plant, and is needed to meet imminent municipal water demands for development growth in the City of Brampton, Northwest Development Area. The Region of Peel retained Burnside for the planning, detailed design and contract administration of the Alloa Reservoir and Pumping Station project.
This facility was designed to provide an ultimate capacity of 165 ML/d. The project includes the design and construction of a 35ML, two celled reservoir with design provisions for a future expansion of the reservoir storage to 70ML; a pumping station servicing Peel Zone 6W and Zone 7W; electrical supply included twinned 750kVA transformers, 5kV switchgear, 4160V feeds to pump starters and 4160V-600/347V transformers to feed 600V MCC; 1250 kW diesel generator; provision for top-up chlorination; and a dedicated administration area with a boardroom and offices. Eramosa provided electrical, instrumentation & control and SCADA services as a sub consultant to RJ Burnside.
We are very pleased to share that the Region of Peel’s Alloa Reservoir and Pumping Station Project has been selected as the Ontario Public Works Association’s (OPWA) 2020 Project of the Year for Environmental Projects between $10-$50 Million.
Eramosa Engineering Inc (Eramosa) is constantly monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that the situation and information available from trusted government sources and local public health authorities constantly changes. To address this challenge head on while maintaining our commitment to service for our clients, Eramosa has made a number of changes to our standard practices to mitigate the health and safety risks of our team, clients, and the community.
Our team and team members remain committed to you. Our back-end corporate systems are already in place for remote working and we have expanded our work from home policy for all team members at Eramosa. Call us and we will answer. Email us and we will respond.
We have cancelled all international trips outside of Canada and the USA indefinitely.
We continue to conduct all non-critical meetings via remote teleconferences wherever possible.
We continue to support our clients and projects through all necessary onsite work ranging from commissioning as well as SCADA system maintenance and emergency support.
Our team members are equipped with personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, sanitizer, and face shields for job specific tasks.
We are now permitting essential business air travel within Canada and to the USA only when considered critical and required using airlines practicing strict pre-screening processes, social distancing for seating, and personal protective equipment requirement.
Please continue to reach out to us as you always have. Our 24 hour support services continue to be available to help you keep critical public and private sector systems online. As a reminder our 24 hour support line is 226-780-2260.
We will adjust our policies and practices as more information becomes available from Health Canada as well as Provincial and Local Health Authorities. As a result of this the policies and plans identified within this letter are in effect the date of posting and are subject to change. We thank you for your support and understanding. If you have any questions or concerns you can reach me at nick.hallas@eramosa.com.
