Fixing our Underground Waterways
Note: This article originally appeared in Business Times Serving The Communities of Cambridge, Guelph, Kitchener and Waterloo
Rich Letkeman
Oct 19, 2006
FIXING OUR UNDERGROUND WATERWAYS
The costs could be catastrophic if we don't do something about our infrastructure
Massive failures are imminent, maybe, in North America's vast, century-old underground water and sewer systems unless they are replaced at a cost estimated at $750 billion, according to a recent television documentary on the History Channel.
But when the documentary moved into the topic of remediation, the bad news was diminished by word of a fledgling technology known as leak detection. In fact, at the forefront of a handful of North American firms offering high-tech alternatives to the brutal task of replacement, is a 10-year-old innovative company from Mississauga, whose detection and subsequent repairs have cost as little as five per cent of replacement estimates.
Not much money has been spent on public infrastructure for Ontario's growing population over the last 20 years, but the government now is underway with $30 billion worth of road, bridge, hospital and school projects. However, underground infrastructure is essentially out of sight - and out of mind until small disasters strike. A break in a trunk sewer is about as damaging to the environment as any municipal catastrophe.
Included in the $30 billion Ontario infrastructure budget for 2006-2010 is a $1 billion "clean water and environment" plan for the province's $50 billion worth of municipal water and wastewater pipelines. That amounts to a seventh to one-fifth of what experts say is needed to maintain infrastructure. It's estimated that Canadian cities are replacing their underground infrastructure at only about 25 per cent of what needs to be done. This deficit involves the key liquid to our livelihood, without which it's not only the economy that would collapse.
Catastrophic failures of water, sewer mains or other public works can cost millions in lawsuits and physical damage, and they're usually blamed on an aging or neglected infrastructure. The example in Kitchener last month of concrete patchwork falling from a bridge structure on the Conestoga Parkway was a minor occurrence of infrastructure failure, but it could have resulted in major injuries and lawsuits.
Pressures in underground water pipes can be as high as 200 pounds per square inch, fed from - let's say - a 200 foot water tower plus a 100 psi boost from powerful pumps. In a major breach, this force is close to sensational if you're standing nearby, and it "excavates" pretty much anything in its way such as earth, pavement, foundations and office furniture.
In many sections of pipeline, frequent breaks can occur consistently in pipes laid or manufactured in specific contracts, according to Thomas Schmidt, commissioner of transportation and environmental services for Waterloo Region, where pressures are in the order of 45 to 110 psi. Many other cases are anomalies more related to long-range compression from heavy traffic, frost-heaving, ground-shifting and other environment factors, or electrolytic corrosion depending on the pipeline's makeup.
The more frequent the breaks, the more city officials shudder to think about massive expenditures, of perhaps $3 million to $5 million per mile on main trunks. When a break occurs in sewer trunks, the surprise is more like detonating a time bomb, since many of these aging trunks lie beside rivers and most of them are in "sensitive" regions in or near population centres.
"There always are leaks in a water system," says Dr. Brian Mergelas, president and CEO of the award-winning Mississauga firm, Pressure Pipe Inspection Co. (PPIC). "In fact, some cities in the U.S. and Canada are dealing with measured leak factors of 25 per cent or more."
In Waterloo Region, Schmidt's estimate of water loss in the region's grid is in the 10 per cent range. "It's not insignificant, but we balance the cost of water loss against costs of replacing the damaged sections."
But do breaks in a water or wastewater trunk, in these days of E.coli scares, really signify gross neglect of infrastructure? "Not if you see how many miles - and often more than ninety-five per cent - of pipelines are still in pristine condition and outlasting their nominal lifespan of, typically, 50 years," says Mergelas.
He cites an extreme case in Texas where 50 per cent of the water was lost to leaks in a prestressed-concrete pipeline that was failing long before its time.
Mergelas launched PPIC in 1997, with the help of inventor and Professor David Atherton of Queen's University. PPIC delivers its pipeline technology with a staff of 50, who use three patented systems to inspect pipelines around North America while carrying out leading-edge R&D.
"We've dealt with many 100-year-old-plus pipes built of cast iron or of wooden staves wrapped with wire," says Mergelas, "As long as they were invisible and served the towns or old industrial areas throughout decades of modern history, they were left alone." Why change something that works?
Besides, people typically didn't and still don't really know how long a pipe will serve its purpose whether it's wood, clay, steel, cast iron, plastic or prestressed concrete.
According to Dr. Mergelas there are about 700 breaks per day in North American water mains. "There will be major problems in 10 years' time if they're not fixed."
The repair bill for ailing civic pipelines is estimated at $750 billion for North America or perhaps $80 billion in Canada. Replacement value is factored into the picture when municipalities adopt public-asset management systems that assess public assets and annual depreciation factors. But in asset-management jargon, especially when it comes to highways, the asset loses value until it zeroes or becomes a "negative asset", or deficit. With underground pipes, the deficit often comes as a surprise when breaks begin to occur too frequently.
"As with most surprises, the money's not available because there was no planning. A hundred-million dollar trunk line with a 50 year lifespan should have a maintenance schedule," says Dr. Mergelas. "Rather than depreciating the asset at two million dollars per year over the fifty year period, why not keep the asset on the books and raise money for repair and replacement expenditures to maintain the full, original, [inflation-adjusted] asset value?"
In its quest for the perfect underground infrastructure, PPIC has developed its own, proprietary asset-management system (AMS) for water managers. It delivers visuals of a system's condition and provides data for decision-making.
Waterloo Region contains water mains in the 12 to 30 inch range and has a 10 year, organized plan for repair and replacement of old pipelines, carried out by separate municipal jurisdictions.
Several leak-detection techniques are used to reduce the incidence of "surprise breaks", says Thomas Schmidt. The most common of them involves listening, by means of microphones which can be effective for all sizes of pipe, and then tracking and correlating the results. Another involves metering the water throughput in individual sections, "to see how much water goes missing".
"Detection techniques have reduced costs of upkeep but, overall," says Schmidt, "people are recognizing that we need to invest more money in maintaining our water resource and capability. Kitchener has had to increase municipal water rates substantially to finance replacement projects."
Since 1997, PPIC has brought in three techniques to tame this looming infrastructure deficit, and a lot of Canadian municipalities have taken advantage of them: the staff of 50 motivated individuals is spread thinly, with 35 working in Mississauga and about five in each of its Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix branches.
The newest PPIC technique is the "Sahara" system that pinpoints leaks as small as a litre per hour, in pipes as skinny as 12 inches, from all pipe types, by means of a sensor attached to an umbilical cable inserted into a live pipeline.
It sends signals upstairs where crews mark the ground and record water loss.
The RFEC/TC system monitors prestressed concrete pipes and employs EM waves to determine location, distribution and number of wire breaks in the pipe. It's useful as an early-warning system for pipes of 24 inch diameters or more.
Acoustic-emission testing (AET), also for 24 inch plus prestressed pipes, relies on sounds and vibrations to measure any "wire-related events" along a pipe section. It's installable to work full-time at the task of failure-prevention.
"We've come a long way," he says, "from the days when leaks, after a few minor incidents, prompted cities to replace entire systems that were largely pristine systems rather than face potential disaster."
About PPIC
A world leader in large diameter water and wastewater pipeline condition assessment, the Pressure Pipe Inspection Company (PPIC) offers forward looking solutions to help customers address aging infrastructure challenges in a reliable and cost effective manner. Our innovative services pinpoint damaged sections of a pipeline to help optimize infrastructure investments, stop leaks, reduce risk and ensure compliance. PPIC has inspected over 6,000 miles of critical pipeline assets over the past decade. For more information, visit www.ppic.com.
For more information, contact:
Michael Stadnyckyj
the Pressure Pipe Inspection Company
+1 905-624-1040 x 301
mstad@ppic.com