Currently, five out of six Waabnoong Bemjiwang Association of First Nations (WBAFN) communities have water treatment plants and distribution systems. Each of the five has one operator that meets provincial regulations for plant operations and in some cases they are building capacity for backup coverage of their main operator. Of the five communities, there are two that have wastewater plants.
There are many challenges with the current water and wastewater management systems, including:
- Geographic areas requiring significant travel time are costly and time consuming
- Independent operations and maintenance do not capture any economies of scale as a Hub and operate independently
- Lack of tools and information for financial planning
- Turnover among First Nation plant operators. Once trained, they often pursue better paying opportunities
- Challenged to provide proper maintenance (planned and unplanned) at some facilities
- Data collection and analysis from water and wastewater systems is difficult and time consuming
- Responses to issues are delayed and costly
- Lack of financial and technical resources
To address these and other issues, the WBAFN is proposing a solution that begins the process towards developing a Hub to ensure that its water and wastewater treatment plants are consistently managed, operated and maintained in an effective, professional and responsible manner. The goal is to empower our communities and operating teams with the technology and training for remote water and wastewater monitoring and asset maintenance capacity using OCWA’s technology and expertise in the areas of field mentoring and best practices.
The project is proposed in two phases. This proposal addresses the Phase 1 Pilot Project, with some reference to Phase 2 for context and long-term goals. The purpose of Phase 1 of the project is to create a Hub and install long-term water and wastewater monitoring and maintenance capacity at two First Nations communities within the WBAFN: Nipissing and Wasauksing. All technology and accompanying training will be provided by the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA).
Two systems – a remote monitoring system and an asset management system – will be installed at the two sites during the first phase of the project.