How can FlowWorks help with Combined Sewage Overflow Monitoring?

There’s a good website I found called about Combined Sewage Overflows, I’m going to shamelessly pull some of the writing from it for this blog entry.

The definition of a combined sewer overflow (CSO), from Water Environment Federation Manual of Practice FD-17: Prevention and Control of Sewer System Overflows is: “A CSO is the intentional or unintentional discharge of untreated sanitary wastewater mixed with stormwater runoff or snow melt and occurs when the carrying capacity of a single conveyance system is exceeded by the instantaneous rate of flow within the single conveyance system. To control where overflows occur, engineers design diversion structures at strategic locations within the single conveyance system that ultimately discharge extraneous commingled flow to receiving waters.”

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a national framework in the United States for control of CSOs called the ‘Combined Sewer Overflow Control Policy’. The Policy was developed through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program, which requires that all point sources discharging pollutants to surface waters must have a permit. The CSO Control Policy provides information on how to meet the pollution control goals of the Clean Water Act flexibly and cost-effectively. The Policy, published in 1994, contains four fundamental principles to ensure that CSO controls are cost-effective and meet local environmental objectives:

Clear levels of control to meet health and environmental objectives

Flexibility to consider the site-specific nature of CSOs and find the most cost-effective way to control them

Phased implementation of CSO controls to accommodate a community’s financial capability

Review and revision of water quality standards during the development of CSO control plans to reflect the site-specific wet weather impacts of CSOs3.

As part of the CSO Control Policy, all communities with combined sewer systems were required to implement ‘nine minimum controls’ by January 1, 1997. These controls are measures that can be implemented to reduce the effect of CSOs without large engineering studies. The ‘nine minimum controls’ are summarized below:

Proper operation and regular maintenance programs for the sewer system and the CSOs

Maximum use of the collection system for storage

Review and modification of pre-treatment requirements to assure CSO impacts are minimized

Maximization of flow to the publicly owned treatment works for treatment

Prohibition of CSOs during dry weather

Control of solid and floatable materials in CSOs

Pollution prevention

Public notification to ensure that the public receives adequate notification of CSO occurrences and CSO impacts.

So it’s not surprising that one of the biggest uses that we see for FlowWorks is clients who are looking for cost-effective monitoring and reporting of CSO’s. The equipment to do this is now WAY cheaper than it used to be, so much so that it’s now possible to instrument overflow manholes or chambers with battery powered, underground wireless level equipment for about the same price that just the basic programmable logic controller (PLC) would cost in a traditional SCADA system. As a result, putting monitors in every overflow location is now within striking distance of cities that have even modest funding available. We are seeing clients instrument their overflow points with ultrasonic level sensors, pressure transducers, and even good old-fashioned float switches. There are even some amazing load-rated all-in-one monitoring manhole lids available on the market!

Once you have those locations instrumented, watching near-realtime data coming into FlowWorks is where the real fun begins. When all is well, you see all of the locations as green symbols on the FlowWorks map. When levels are nearing critical values the symbols switch to orange, and finally to red as the event begins. At several stages before and during the event, FlowWorks will issue alarm emails and text messages to everyone that needs to know. At anytime during or after the event, the FlowWorks graphing and reporting functions can tell you how long the event was. Plus, if the station is setup correctly you can get an estimate of how much overflow volume has been spilled.

It’s even possible for us to customize the reporting functions to match the exact format and requirements of your regulatory agency. After the events are over, a few mouse clicks is all it takes to produce the CSO overflow duration and volume reports to meet your regulatory obligations.

Using SCADA with FlowWorks

Making an Operator’s Life Simple

Did you know that you can connect your existing SCADA system to FlowWorks? Why would you want to do this? The first reaction that many people have is “we already have a SCADA system, why would we want to use FlowWorks?” Because FlowWorks is not just for dataloggers, and it does a lot more than just store and plot data. Think of some of the things you could be doing with your SCADA data if you used FlowWorks to do it…

If you are in the municipal business, odds are that you have a SCADA system. You probably also have some dataloggers and maybe some sewer flow meters. Wouldn’t it be nice to put all of that data into one place? Do you want to easily plot flow data from your treatment plant SCADA with rainfall data collected by your dataloggers? How about adding some laboratory measurement results along side? If you use FlowWorks, you can do this.

Plus, if you want, the data flow can go BACKWARDS from FlowWorks to your SCADA! What if you use FlowWorks to collect rainfall from some rain gauge dataloggers, but your SCADA also collects rainfall data? The two can give data to each other, so you and your users see the complete dataset! Core staff who use SCADA see valuable information, using the interface that they are used to. At the same time, data from SCADA (which is often difficult to distribute to users outside of the SCADA system) is made available to a larger set of users. No more having to deal with different data formats because some of your data came from the SCADA, some came datalogger brand X and yet other info came from Brand Y.

Setup Personal Alarms

Use the FlowWorks alarming system to setup notifications for other purposes that aren’t mission critical SCADA alarms…maybe you need to know when flows at a treatment plant reach a certain point so you can take a sample…or it’s time to photograph potential flooding at a drainage location…or maybe you want to know the next time a chlorine analyzer shows a low value so that you can go and take a sample to verify it. These are all things that you can do but might not have SCADA alarms setup for…with FlowWorks you can create your OWN notifications without requiring your SCADA staff to setup these alarms for you.

Your OWN Notifications

Yes, that’s what I said – this is a big deal. In FlowWorks, each user can customize their alarms and notifications, independent of anyone else. This can help you do your job more efficiently, the way you want to do it, and without extra corporate overhead that is so often required.

Custom Reporting

Use the reporting functions to produce tables for your reports…total water consumption, water quality reporting, rainfall summaries and statistics, pump run times, chemical injection summaries…if your SCADA system has been measuring it there is something that FlowWorks can do to make it more useful to you. Why record it if you can’t use it for anything?

SCADA Data Security and FlowWorks

FlowWorks provides data viewing and analysis tools only. There are no control functions that would be in a typical SCADA setup. This means that when you are viewing data sent to FlowWorks from your SCADA system, it is a mirrored COPY of the data rather than the original data itself. In this way the finite control details of your system are protected from the user, leaving your system and network ultimately secure.

Do you have information that you want to distribute to a larger group of users, but due to security concerns over your SCADA system you can’t do it? If your SCADA system is connected to FlowWorks then you get the best of both worlds…your SCADA system stays locked behind your corporate security, but the data that you want to distribute to others is made available. FlowWorks CANNOT be used to alter data or access your SCADA system and controls in any way.

In the meantime, you and other FlowWorks users within your organization enjoy simple, unlimited access to the information you need, from anywhere with an internet connection. Even if the only thing you use your SCADA system for is to graph data, I guarantee you that FlowWorks will do a better job than your SCADA graphing engine.

Data Loggers for Remote Data Collection Systems: Which One to Choose?

I am a practising Professional Egineer who does A LOT of data collection applications, both for my clients as well as for the 150 or so employee needs within my own firm. When someone asks me what kind of data logger they should use, I always start by asking them where the data logger will be located, and what it will be used for. There are plenty of choices! Here’s a few of the systems and applications that are currently connected to FlowWorks.

Telog

We have some small water and sewer treatment plants that talk to FlowWorks using Telog’s wireless 1XRTT modem. We like the Telog products (particularly the 3307 and 3314), as these units are very reliable and they have some very flexible telemetry options (including dialup phone, wireless, and direct Ethernet connections).

ISCO

ISCO 2150 area-velocity meters in sanitary sewers come in via ISCO’s wireless 1XRTT system. The ISCO’s are purpose-built and hence not as flexible as the Telog wireless system, but the ISCO’s are compact units that generally get the job done well enough.

Marsh McBirney

There are a few Marsh McBirney FloDar’s connected to FlowWorks. These units were plugged into the Telog RU33 product, which acts as a data recording and telemetry module for the FloDar.

There is an ADS FlowShark connected to FlowWorks. We don’t have a lot of experience with these yet, but our client out East seems to be happy enough with the unit. It uses wireless 1XRTT just like the Telog and ISCO systems.

Satellite Stations

We have remote stations that use satellite because there is no other option where these sites are located. Right now we have Campbell Scientific and Unidata Neon systems connected. We know that Campbell Scientific systems have been around for a long time and have a proven track record. The Neons also seem to be holding up well.

The bottom line is that there are several ways you can do any particular data collection application. We are always doing new applications, and we keep on top of what’s out there on the market, what works well and what doesn’t. Feel free to ask us for a bit of advice the next time you are looking to do a new data collection application! We work with an expanding list of logger manufacturers, and we provide unbiased advice.

Using a Solar Panel on a Remote Climate Monitoring Station

Are solar panels worth it?

There are a lot of hydrometric, sanitary, and rainfall/climate monitoring stations sending data into FlowWorks. Many of our clients have asked us if it’s worth putting a solar panel system on their stations to extend the run times between battery changes. I know there are people who will disagree with me, but my personal opinion is that generally the answer is No.

The main reason to have solar power on your station is to either eliminate or extend the run time between battery changes. There’s also a bit of a “green” look to them. But here’s my main arguments for not bothering:

Any station should be able to run for at least 2 or 3 months on battery power, including those that run on the wireless telemetry systems that Telog, ISCO, ADS, and other manufacturers make. You should be visiting a station to do other station maintenance more often then that anyway, so battery changes shouldn’t be the only reason to go to a site.
If the main reason you want solar is for the Green Theme, that’s great, but the station still needs a battery, which still has to be recycled eventually just like a non-solar station.
Any solar panel large enough to operate a station reliably is usually an easy vandal target. Solar panels are favorite and very expensive targets for guns.
If the panel is very small (like a trickle charger you can buy at an automotive store), you won’t get a huge benefit from it. But they are cheap enough that when they get vandalized you won’t miss the money as much.

Absolutely there are times when solar is a good idea. If you can secure the site against vandalism, or if the site is very remote (and hence not that likely to be vandalized), then if you can stomach the extra expense go for it. Solar panels are still fairly pricey, and they can add up to a large part of the bill for a typical monitoring station. Otherwise, save your money and put it towards more monitoring sites instead.

Stop-Motion Video Of A Construction Project

One of our clients (the District of West Vancouver) has graciously allowed us to post the results of their Eagle Creek Culvert Replacement project. The District used an Emerald FlowWorks wireless video camera to monitor vehicle traffic around a fish-friendly culvert replacement project. The camera took pictures of the site, day and night, once per-minute for about 3 months. We took daytime images and processed them into a stop-motion project video. Take a look….3 months of construction in 3 minutes!

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How Can FlowWorks Remote Cameras Create Stop-Motion Video?

It’s easy. FlowWorks Wireless Cameras send images from a remote installation based on motion sensing and timed intervals. This allows us to find a balance between image quality and available wireless bandwidth. When it was time to make a stop-motion movie, routines in the FlowWorks server strips out night-time images and string the daytime ones together into a movie file.

How a FlowWorks Wireless Camera helped The Eagle Creek Culvert Replacement Project

In this case the District wanted the camera to monitor traffic around a very congested section of Marine Drive in West Vancouver. Automated traffic lights were used to alternate the single lane traffic. This keepsake project video was produced as a side benefit after the project was done. The District also has a permanent visual record (some 125,000 images in all) of the construction for future reference.

Off to the Olympics: What’s next for the Wireless Camera Station

The portable camera is now being moved to a traffic congestion area to monitor access to Cypress Mountain during the Olympics.

More Information?

Take a look at our FlowWorks Demo video. After the video you can fill out our demonstration request form. Or, you can fill it out directly below. One of our staff will contact you shortly to set up a live demonstration.

Field Equipment – Standard vs. Daylight Savings Time

We are often asked by our clients why we always program data collection systems in the field in Standard time, and why we never collect or show data in Daylight Savings Time. The main reason is for long-term consistency, and it usually only gets appreciated years later when all of that great data gets looked at by someone doing a multi-year study. Here’s an example:

A client has been using FlowWorks for several years, and is now ready to do some sewer inflow & infiltration (I&I) analysis work. The client downloads a block of data, or uses the FlowWorks I&I analysis tool for this purpose.

When you do this type of analysis, you remove a dry weather flow pattern template from the total flow data. It is essential that all of the data be in Standard Time, otherwise you run the risk of using dry and wet weather templates that are shifted relative to each other by 1 hour (dry weather often being taken when Daylight Savings Time is in effect, while wet weather events are often during Standard Time). The result is sometimes subtle and difficult to see, but often leads to the wrong answers being generated in the analysis.

We’ve seen this happen with lots of other applications:

- Operations staff will look at data and want to know when the early morning low sewage flow comes, in order to plan for some maintenance work in the pipe. Not being sure if the data is in Standard or Daylight time causes confusion. On FlowWorks, nearly everything is always in Standard time.

- Comparing data from 2 different rain and storm sewer stations (one running in Standard Time, the other in Daylight) causes confusion and puts a 1 hour error on the timing of the rain peak relative to the storm peak.

Whenever we have a choice, we always run our data collection platforms in Standard Time as we feel it is best practice, and avoids as much confusion as possible. It is true that there is an inconvenience associated with all of the data being stored in standard time, usually when the data is being used for very casual review by someone who is not used to Standard Time, or if trying to pin down the time that an actual event (such as a sewer overflow) occurred. However, we feel the long-term benefits of keeping everything on the same time signal outweigh the inconveniences. If you find you have an application where you absolutely must have the correction for Daylight time applied to your data, talk to us! We do have some workarounds for you.

New Feature! Clipboard Pasting

Staff from the City of Ottawa suggested we add a simple button to save a copy of the current graph to the Windows clipboard. Use this icon: at the top of the graphing engine.

After you press the button, you can simply paste a copy of the graph into Word, Excel, email, or any other document that can work with images. Thanks Ottawa!

Telus Auto-Optimizer Rate Plan

Telus now has a sensible data optimization rate plan! Click here to go to the Telus webpage.

Essentially, if you have sites that vary quite a bit in their usage, you can switch to these plans which automatically adjust based on the amount of data traffic you use. This probably won’t help too much for many of your stations, as we usually already have Telus clients setup on what is now the cheapest rate plan ($30/500 MB). The only stations that risk going over 500MB/month are the video camera stations, so it may be worth asking your Telus representative to switch you to this plan for your camera stations. If you don’t have a Telus rep, you can always call Andy MacCormack at TAC Mobility who is very helpful (604-817-2224). Also, if you use laptop aircards with Telus, your organization may be able to save quite a bit of money by switching to this plan.

Emerald FlowWorks is now Online!

Well it’s been a hard few months of slogging through the programming and writing the website content, but Emerald FlowWorks is officially online!

Many of you reading this will be following us from our previous website. The new and improved FlowWorks hopefully is going to blow your socks off with some of our new features. Particularly, we hope you enjoy playing around with the new map-based interface to all of your stations. Also, be sure to check out all of the new support material, including plenty of how-to videos. Hopefully you’ll learn something new about how to use FlowWorks to full advantage.

For those of you who are brand new to FlowWorks, make sure you watch the introductory video to get the overview of what it’s all about, then dive right in to trying out the demo!

On behalf of everyone here at the FlowWorks team, Welcome!

The FlowWorks Blog