Workshop Report

Creating the Winning Conditions for Technological Innovation in Municipal Water and Wastewater Infrastructure: A Policy Discussion(1)

Workshop held as part of the Policy Research Initiative's Freshwater for the Future Policies for Sustainable Water Management in Canada Conference

This text has been taken from the Policy Research Initiative's Freshwater for the Future Policies for Sustainable Water Management in Canada Conference Proceedings

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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Margaret Hill, Infrastructure Canada
• Mary Trudeau, Marbek Resource Consultants
• Duncan Ellison, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association
• Troy D. Vassos, NovaTec Consultants Inc.
• Bruce Linton, Clearford Industries
• Cate Soroczan, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC)
• Chris Ward, City of Edmonton
• Discussion

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Rapporteur

Wendy Krkosek, Department of Civil and Resource Engineering,
Dalhousie University

Speakers

Mary Trudeau, Marbek Resource Consultants
T. Duncan Ellison, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association

Panelists

Troy D. Vassos, NovaTec Consultants Inc.
Bruce Linton, Clearford Industries
Cate Soroczan, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Chris Ward, City of Edmonton

Chair

Margaret Hill, Infrastructure Canada

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Introduction

The uptake of new and innovative technologies by practitioners in the water infrastructure sector is of key importance in addressing concerns over Canada's freshwater. Employing the most efficient and sustainable techniques helps to reduce deterioration of the water infrastructure network; reduce the environmental impact of water infrastructure; improve asset management; and ensure that there are adequate water resources and water infrastructure for all Canadians.

This session addressed three main research questions through several presentations and a panel discussion:

• What important technological innovations for water infrastructure have emerged or are emerging in Canada and other countries?
• What are the key factors affecting their use and adoption?
• What measures can be taken to encourage the uptake of innovative technologies?

Margaret Hill, Infrastructure Canada

Water and wastewater infrastructure tend to be forgotten in discussions about freshwater policy. Water infrastructure is the means of transmission, distribution and allocation. This session looks at the role of communities and municipalities in freshwater policy. The focus is usually on the national and provincial scales, but this session brings it down to the community level where Canadians face water issues on a day-to-day basis.

The following questions will provide the context for the ensuing presentations and discussions:

• What are the links between freshwater policy and water/wastewater infrastructure?
• What is the state of water and wastewater infrastructure in Canada?
• How is innovation in water infrastructure defined and what is the role of technology (scan of existing innovative technologies, governance models, policies, and their mutually supporting nature)?
• Opening questions: To what degree is uptake of innovative technologies water/wastewater a question of supply (availability) versus demand (use)?

The federal water policy was introduced in 1987. It contained some information on water and wastewater infrastructure and links with policy. However, it focused on water management, not allocation at the municipal level. The policy focused on the pricing of services through municipal water and wastewater, not through infrastructure itself. Since then a lot has changed, there is a growing sense that infrastructure is an integral part of an effective and efficient water policy for Canada. It has now been recognized that water and wastewater asset management has implications for water quality and human and ecological health. Also, the design, construction, building, operation and financing of water and wastewater infrastructure assets are key factors in the level of water use, supply and demand.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2000, the total value of public-owned sewage and sanitary treatment facilities in Canada was at just under $32 billion. The state of this infrastructure has been in general decline since the 1970s. The public has identified this as an important issue, which is highlighted through the high profile case of Walkerton. Municipal authorities regularly report the need for infrastructure repair to meet new regulation standards for sewage treatment. The level of investment required to repair infrastructure in Canada in the next decadeand a half is somewhere between $38 and $89 billion.

Governments are responding in some capacity. Infrastructure Canada has invested $1.5 billion in the last decade, funding more than 2,300 projects, since the early 1990s. Under Canada's strategic infrastructure fund, proponents are encouraged to use innovative technologies and delivery systems in proposed projects.

The focus of this afternoon's discussion is innovation, specifically technological innovation, and how to improve the uptake of technological innovation. The general view is that innovation represents introducing something new.  Conventional approaches tend to prevail even when innovative options exist. The focus needs to be on why this happens and what can be done about it.

Mary Trudeau, Marbek Resource Consultants

When discussing technological innovation in water and wastewater infrastructure, it is important to realize that what is innovative in one community may be well established in another. Technologies are only as good as the issues they address, and it is important to understand the challenges that face water and wastewater infrastructure development. Given the current state of funding, it is important to find technologies that do the job, and the bells and whistles can come later.

There are five main challenges for technological innovation in water and wastewater infrastructure:

Challenge 1: Ensuring efficient, effective, affordable service

Municipalities are increasingly stressed with more responsibility and increased regulatory requirements. Aging infrastructure and investment needs only compound the breadth of this challenge.

Some examples of technologies that can address these issues include;

Designing to suit the community size, capacity and needs.

• Using membrane bioreactors and small diameter sewer systems
• with more on-site storage and treatment, which results in a
• responsibility shift towards the user
• Increasing the efficiency of Operation and Maintenance
• Installing automated asset management systems, preventive
• maintenance, optimization of operations including remote
• centralized control of small systems

Cost-effective rehabilitation and replacement programs

• Trenchless technologies and water main re-lining programs

Cost recovery

• Metering (water and wastewater), remote read, satellite read options
• Charging for higher strength waste through sampling programs
• GIS use for stormwater systems, to calculate a cost to the user for water that runs off property into the stormwater system due to impervious surfaces

Our current model treats our water as three separate systems in terms of infrastructure, high quality potable water, wastewater, and stormwater. Potable water is used for industry, lawn watering, firefighting, showers, toilet flushing, and less then one percent is actually used for drinking purposes. Rainwater is immediately taken off-site, through the stormwater collection system and generally discharged to the environment untreated. This can cause many problems for the receiving environment, mainly due to the increased temperatures associated with pavement run-off, and lack of base flow conditions. All three parts of the current water system are part of the water cycle, and thus the water cycle integrity as a goal for infrastructure development needs to be incorporated into the design process.

In using the water cycle as part of the design process, several historical approaches need to be reassessed. Design needs to move beyond water-use efficiency as a goal and focus on the carrying capacity of the watershed as the ultimate water-use target. Also, it is automatically assumed that it is acceptable to discharge wastes into water courses, perhaps it is time to look beyond this concept.

Challenge 2: Managing water demand and developing sustainable levels of service

Urban populations are growing, and water consumption rates are high. There is a consumer expectation that turning on a tap will bring cheap potable quality water. There is a need here to address the potential effects that climate change may have on the availability of water resources.

There are several technologies available to address this challenge:

Community design

• Urban sprawl will continue to drain water resources

Water Efficiency

• Low-flow fixtures and low-consumption toilets can help to reduce per capita consumption rates

Beyond Efficiency, matching water quality to the intended use.

• Using grey water for toilets, rainwater harvesting. An example is the Toronto Healthy House. These technologies lead to different capacity issues by transferring ownership and expertise to the consumer.

Challenge 3: Meeting the challenges of human health impacts

Conventional water and wastewater treatment is designed to remove known historical contaminants. However, there are many new contaminants that are not removed by current technologies including disinfection by-products (haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes), and emerging contaminants, such as endocrine disrupting substances and pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Technologies do exist to remove of these substances, but they can be expensive. Again, a radical change to current configuration could be used to eliminate discharge to streams altogether, but using these technologies requires more work and knowledge by consumers.

Challenge 4: Meeting the challenges of environmental impacts

Human and environmental health share many issues as discussed in challenge 3. These impacts can be minimized by trying to keep water where it falls, using simple technologies, such as infiltration, ditches, green roofs, and cisterns. These simple technologies are innovative in the way that they use water, not necessarily in their technological design. One challenge to implementing these types of technologies arises in public perception, the public tends to view them as regression instead of progression.

Climate change will have implications on design and management of stormwater systems. Design storms and floods are changing, and different data sets will be needed to properly design systems for future events.

Challenge 5: Holistic watershed management approach

Holistic approaches are not technologically driven. They are more of a social and governance process. However, certain technologies can assist, including GIS, watershed and urban planning modelling software (MetroQuest) as a public engagement tool, and field investigations for watershed characterization. Decisions need to be made based on the potential of the watershed, not on historical human activity.

In summary, there are significant challenges for both the business-as-usual scenario and for implementing innovative technologies into water and wastewater infrastructure. New technologies have to be taken into context with the systems that are in place, and they change from region to region. Technologies can assist but they are not the driver. There are several factors that need to be addressed when assessing and implementing new technologies, such as availability of resources, capacity, regulatory standards and stakeholder buy-in.

Duncan Ellison, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association

The CWWA is the national representative of municipal water and wastewater services and it tries to influence federal and provincial policies that impact the way water and wastewater services are carried out.

There are several hypotheses to put forth in the context of the key factors affecting the use and adoption of innovative water and wastewater technologies:

• There is beneficial technology that is not being adopted
• The benefits exceed the costs and these are known or appreciated
• Municipalities cannot/do not keep up-to-date with technology or innovation
• North America (our field of reference) leads the field.

There are five key factors affecting the adoption of innovative technologies by municipalities; ignorance, fear, conservation, funding, regulations. The provincial regulator may approach the situation from one of these five perspectives as well, and thus may not want the municipality to use an innovative technology. The regulatory burden in most parts of the country is an enormous problem. If you want to change any one small part of a system, the whole system gets held up in a review of the certificate of operation, sometimes for years at a time. These are crucial issues to address in the municipal sector.

There are several different areas for technology applications:

• The distribution/collection system both construction and maintenance, looking at different materials, trenchless technologies.
• Treatment technologies and process trains, including disinfection strategies.
• Operational controls – supervising control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.
• Quality monitoring devices for rapid detection of contaminant breaches.
• Security systems, post 9/11. Physical and electronic security to minimize vulnerability of systems to potential attack.

Following are five factors affecting technology adoption as applied to these applications:

• Distribution/collection – ignorance, conservatism, funding
• Treatment – ignorance, funding, regulations
• Operational – ignorance, conservatism, funding
• Monitoring – funding, regulations
• Security – ignorance, funding

It is important to compare municipal versus non-municipal systems and the differences in barriers between the two. Point-of-entry/point-of-use systems such as Brita filters, RO units, and UV technologies are generally regulated only for performance and material safety, but do they actually remove what they are supposed to remove? Do they allow contaminants to leach into the system? There is considerable innovation and marketing in these systems, but in the end it is the individual building owner making decisions and there are no regulatory constraints to follow. Another example is on-site wastewater treatment systems. Traditional septic systems do not produce high quality effluent, and technology for improving it does exist. However, there is virtually no post-installation monitoring and the responsibility is placed on the owner with no incentives from municipalities to comply.

To help with municipal systems innovation solutions, it would be useful if there was an independent credible environmental technology evaluation system in place. A validation program is used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), but there is no functional program in operation in Canada. The InfraGuide program provides valuable information on best management practices.

It is imperative to reduce the burden of prescriptive regulatory processes in order to facilitate adoption of innovative technologies. Most regulation started at the turn of the last century, and the process has not changed since, it is time to address this, and provide an environment where best practices are encouraged. There is a need to refocus the regulatory system to avoid prescriptive approaches. There is willingness to innovate, but people don't want to do it because they end up tied up in regulatory knots for years. We can also benefit from looking at regulatory approaches internationally – for example, those in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany.

Troy D. Vassos, NovaTec Consultants Inc.

Innovative technologies have technical risk associated with their adoption and implementation. This technical risk leads to financial risk, and governments are generally risk averse, so the question becomes, how to reduce risk without becoming innovation averse?

There are three different methods to use for reducing technology risk; technology verification, establishment of standards, and research and testing collaboration.

Verification consists of a third-party assessment of performance claims, with audits and testing of the technology. Certification relies on a benchmark, a standard that needs to be met, with emphasis on applying protocols.

Currently there are several different verification and certification programs available:

• NSF international (ANSI standard) – Applies to a specific technology, they own standards they develop, protocol testing carried out by a third party.
• USEPA Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) – Verification, not certification, testing done by third parties.
• ETV CANADA – Voluntary program. Manufacturing performance claims are evaluated, under licence agreement with Environment Canada.
• Instrumentation Testing Association – Conglomeration of municipalities to test equipment by pooling their resources and share results of testing.

The development of standards or benchmarks to be used by the municipalities will reduce the level of uncertainty when applying new technologies. For example, there is a Canadian water reuse standard being developed by Heath Canada and CMHC which will provide standard recommendations for water reuse quality to be integrated into the National Building Code.

Through research collaboration, municipalities and government agencies can address the risk associated with the implementation of innovative technologies as early as the technologies become known. Work is ongoing on a concept for the Centre for Environmentally Sustainable Technologies (C-EST) as an example of a research collaboration organization. C-EST will operate as a virtual centre which manages regional, national and international inventories of experts, resources and facilities required for environmentally sustainable technology development. The centre's goal is to reduce technical and financial risk through technology verification, demonstration and commercialization.

Bruce Linton, Clearford Industries

There is currently no practice underway to uptake innovative technologies in the water and wastewater industry. The current methodology of granting money to municipalities is like a lottery. In general, municipalities do not want to do work because they may one day get funding. The only way to increase the adoption of innovative technology is to completely change the way the adoption of technology is funded. If an RRSP approach is taken, where money can be extracted if money is put in, there would be a much greater willingness to innovate.

Innovation has one blunted edge, there is no capital-based market to drive it. Price is not a factor, it only matters how much it costs to operate because that is where the taxes are driven from. To create an innovative environment, it is imperative to standardize billing rates for water and wastewater, as it exists in the electricity sector.

Another major issue is the current model used to hire engineering consultants. Consulting engineers are generally paid as a percentage of the total project, the more money spent, the more money the consultant makes. This model does not lead to an optimal solution or a willingness to innovate. Liability needs to be shared amongst municipalities. If the current lottery model is replaced with one of market-based liability, people will innovate in groups, not as individuals, bringing an increased willingness to implement technologies.

Cate Soroczan, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC)

CMHC has been researching the area of water reuse for over 30 years. The first major water reuse system to be developed was the Canadian Water Energy Loop (CANWELL) in the 1960s. CANWELL included reuse at the source treatment for wastewater and energy reclamation, and it was 30 years ahead of its time. It was technologically feasible, however, it was eventually dismantled for several reasons; major investment was required to commercialize the system, it was not economically feasible, there were environmental approval hurdles and significant ongoing maintenance was required. These are the same barriers faced today.

In 2000, the Eagle Lake EcoNomad won the CMHC housing awards program. This system packages all mechanical systems into a box; sewage, potable water, hot water, heat and power and a remote panel, which can be placed outside the footprint of the home. CMHC completed many demonstration projects, but there were no guidelines in place to move the system forward.

A study on the barriers to water reuse in Canada showed the absence of guidelines across the country, however six provinces permit some form of water reuse practice. The Greater Vancouver Water District (GVWD) has recently approved a drinking water management plan, supporting non-potable water systems using reclaimed water, and the matching of water quality to usage requirements. The goal is to work with the municipality and health authorities to allow specific residential and commercial uses of non-potable water (grey and rain). In an international context, most examples and research relate to toilet flushing, bathing, showering and laundry.

Future steps in this field include coming up with residential reuse water quality guidelines. Thus far, regulators are only comfortable with the use of reclaimed water for toilets, not irrigation. It was necessary to undertake a risk assessment for the use of reuse water as toilet water, even though as soon as water hits a toilet it is instantly non-potable, this is a slow process and needs to be undertaken in baby steps.

CSA standard B128 – the design and installation of non-potable water systems utilizing reclaimed water, has been approved and will be in place by June 2006. However, a national strategy, and a centralized water agency needs to be developed. Within this strategy, funding for research and policy gaps, collaboration and leveraging of resources will be critical components.

Chris Ward, City of Edmonton

There are three main factors that affect the lack of uptake of technology by municipalities; money, risk and capability.

Money

Municipalities spend money on water and wastewater infrastructure because they are told to by either the provincial or federal government. In the 1950s, the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton was considered dead, but after the installation of the treatment plant, the aquatic habitat and life returned to the river. Municipalities need to spend money due to growth (15 percent) and rehabilitation of infrastructure (85 percent). As part of the solution, municipalities need to get their pricing and economics correct. Pricing needs to be amortized over the lifetime of the asset, so that utility rates will fully recover the costs over the lifecycle. As an example, the average price in Ontario for water and wastewater is $40 per month. In Edmonton, it is $50 a month, and this is fully amortized and paid for, so the difference is not great, but it requires political will and customer buy-in.

Most municipalities don't want to spend money unless they have to. Some may choose to spend money for environmental reasons, but for the most part, money is tied up in projects that need to be done, such as growth and rehabilitation, not projects that they want to do.

To facilitate the uptake of new technology, technology developers have to address the money issues of the municipality in promoting their product. The municipality has to be either told to implement the technology, convinced they need to implement the technology, or convinced to want to implement the technology.

Risk

Regulators require that municipalities reach certain effluent targets, but, if a technology fails to meet the target, then the municipality is forced to accept all of the risk. When new technologies are implemented it is important to develop a method of risk-sharing between the municipality, regulator and supplier, so that it is not the sole responsibility of the municipality in case of a failure.

Capability

Every municipality has gone through technology failures and they do not want to repeat the process. Municipalities are not experimental grounds for product testing. New technologies need to be proven before being fully implemented.

Proponents of new technologies must expect that municipalities will request a long pilot process. Regulators should also expect that municipalities will be cautious in accepting a new product. In time, if the product is good, it will prove itself and become widespread in the marketplace.

In conclusion, proponents of new technology have to approach the municipality to address the three key factors; money, risk and capability. Without addressing these three factors, municipalities will be slow, or reluctant to apply the technology. In a similar fashion, should regulatory bodies want municipalities to apply new technologies more quickly, they need to be willing to work with municipalities to address their operational issues and ongoing concerns. Finally, municipalities need to address their ongoing financial issues to be able to move forward with a new vision.

Discussion

Question to Mary Trudeau: What is the relationship between the willingness to innovate and the structure of the organization? There are two examples which to respond to. First, is there a difference in willingness to innovate between municipal engineering departments versus separate utilities? Second, would private organizations be more willing to innovate than public-run institutions?

M.T. response: If engineering departments are funded based on metering water and wastewater as utilities are, then there isn't a big difference between the two, as long as the pay structure is adequate. In terms of private versus public, some information suggests that private ownership can have a negative effect on investing in infrastructure. Private organizations have the ability to price, but often maintenance and some long-term technologies or priorities are not adequately addressed.

Question to Mary Trudeau: To what degree is the reluctance to innovate related to inability to regulate through legislative barriers?

M.T. response: Currently, the residential use of grey water is not permitted in parts of this country, and rainwater cannot be used for drinking water, which is a definite barrier for innovation. However, institutional barriers can be important for protecting both providers and consumers. For example, insurance-based on regulations is very important if alternative service and delivery are being considered. On the other hand, the sector can do more to step back and reevaluate institutional barriers.

Question to Duncan Ellison: There was discussion of two approaches that

municipalities can take, centralized and on-site systems, but there is actually a third, decentralized, solution following a cluster approach. There appears to be difficulty in municipalities truly grasping this idea, difficulties in assessing the actual cost-benefit relationship. Is it possible for municipalities to move towards adopting this approach? Are there any policy initiatives to facilitate adoption?

D.E. response: Some municipalities recognize that decentralized systems can make sense. This will continue as more municipalities amalgamate. There are technologies that address this, including SCADA systems which allow control of several different systems from one location. There is a lot of innovation out there that will be achieved no matter what management structure exists. However, there is still some conservatism which creates barriers. Case studies and research would help to facilitate the adoption of this technology. If it is shown that the technology can work in some systems, it will lead to increased willingness to incorporate the technology into other systems.

Open discussion question 1: What important technological innovations for water infrastructure have emerged or are emerging in Canada and other countries?

There are many places in the world that drink reclaimed wastewater. Singapore drinks 15 percent reclaimed wastewater. The technologies being used are Canadian, but they are not being used in Canada. In certain areas, wastewater effluent can actually be of higher quality then some natural source waters. The key factor affecting water reuse is public perception. There is a need to look towards water stressed regions of the world, at the types of technologies that have been developed and apply them here in Canada. A current Brita water filter advertisement plays on the public's fear by showing direct connections between toilet water and tap water. However, only one percent of treated water is even used for drinking purposes, so in fact, we are grossly over purifying our water.

Sometimes technologies that are new to us are not new to others. For example, in Japan, water reuse for toilets exists within entire districts, California uses treated wastewater for groundwater re-injection, and Europe has been using UV for more then 40 years. It is important to draw on this knowledge and research to develop a new level of confidence locally. Canada's problems are not as novel, new or hard as we think. It is important to become global citizens and look at the knowledge that is out there and learn from previous failures and successes.

Open discussion question 2: What are the key factors affecting their use and adoption?

We are living in a post-Walkerton society. We never questioned water safety in the past, but now we do. There is a lot of reluctance from regulators here in Canada to implement new technologies, due to public safety. In places like Germany, innovations are standard practice. The use of rainwater systems is mandated in many communities there. In Canada, there are safety concerns with using rainwater for flushing toilets, and even for irrigating. Even with the new dual plumbing guidelines, there is a concern about responsibility and risk.

The concept of the C-EST research collaboration centre was commercially driven. Investors that want to invest in a technology, use the resources of the centre to find the best technology available, test it and then commercialize it. The problem with this system in the private sector is that it is only profit driven. In municipalities there are other social drivers that may not make economic sense, but that make the technology sustainable. For example, the living machine versus traditional wastewater treatment, which both accomplish the same task and provide the same benefits. If the living machine system is used to educate and change behaviours, even though it is more expensive, there is leveraging of that technology. However, if it is just installed because it is a good thing to do when a more economic alternative would have provided the same services, then it does not make financial sense. It is important that technologies are not always market driven, that there are other agendas to be considered as well.

Open discussion question 3: What measures can be taken to encourage the uptake of innovative technologies?

Over 25 percent of the population in Canada lives with septic tanks and wells. It is imperative to bring minimum standards up across the board so that everyone has access to the same technologies and options. There is an increasing divide between communities that have adequate infrastructure and those that don't, which is mainly attributable to a lack of appropriate pricing.

Environment Canada estimated 15 years ago that if water rates were doubled, there would be no issue financing all water and wastewater infrastructure needs. The barrier was legislative, politicians didn't want to increase the price. This leads to the critical issue of education, for both the politicians and the public. If the public were educated on the issues, there would be more pressure on governments to act accordingly.

There are many different issues being addressed in this discussion; quantity, quality, innovation, and reuse. The problem is, under each these issues, the situation varies from community to community so the solutions will also vary. Some communities deal with exceeding the capacity of their systems, and other communities are shrinking in size and facing different quantity issues. It is important to evaluate on a case-by-case basis when developing solutions and implementing technologies.

A final observation is that both regulation and the absence of regulation can act as barriers to the uptake of innovative technology, it works both ways.

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(1) Krkosek, W. 2006. “Creating the Winning Conditions for Technological Innovation in Municipal Water and Wastewater Infrastructure: A Policy Discussion.” Freshwater for the Future: Policies for Sustainable Water Management in Canada. Conference Proceedings. pp.135-146. Ottawa: Policy Research Initiative.