March 28, 2008

Opinion

Sustainable pipes delivering safety

Construction Corner

Frank Zechner

From time to time, various levels of government turn their attention to the network of pipes that convey wastewaters to treatment plants and the piping systems that are intended to deliver reliable quantities of clean and safe drinking water.

The Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association submits that reliable and sustainable water piping systems are not only an economic convenience, they are a survival, safety and medical necessity.

Medical necessity. The January 2007 issue of the British Medical Journal provided the results of a readership poll about the greatest medical advancement over the past century.

The result was not antibiotics, x-rays or blood transfusions, it was piped water and sewer systems. Those piped systems have avoided more diseases and fatalities than any other medical advance.

Safety. Yes, safety. The water piping system is the backbone of every major firefighting system and high-rise sprinklers, the primary defence in tall residential and commercial buildings, is dependent upon the structural integrity and flow capacity of the watermains in the streets below.

Survival. Next to breathable air, drinkable water is the greatest need for human survival. OSWCA makes four key recommendations regarding water sustainability and efficiency:

1. Proceed with mandatory metering of all residential water customers.

Numerous Canadian and U.S. studies have consistently demonstrated reductions of between 20 and 40 per cent as soon as residential customers go from unlimited consumption services to metered services, even if the amount of the water bill is unchanged.

2. Expedite repairs to the leaky pipes. Many Ontario municipalities have admitted to leakage rates ranging from a low of 7 per cent to as much as 34 per cent of the water treated and placed into the distribution system. In some cases, actual leakage rates may be considerably higher than those admitted by municipalities.

The OSWCA recently estimated that the volume of water lost through leakage in municipal water systems across the province is enough to fill several hundred Olympic-sized swimming pools every day and leakage costs the province hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Would we tolerate a situation where up to 50 per cent of the gasoline we purchase at the pump never makes its way into the vehicle’s fuel tank? If we are serious about conserving water resources, plugging some of the bigger leaks should be at the top of the list.

3. Move towards full-cost pricing. Long before the Walkerton tragedy, the OSWCA has encouraged municipalities to implement full-cost pricing, both as a means of ensuring that municipal water systems are financially sustainable over the long term, but also as a conservation measure.

Coupled with the metering of water usage, full-cost pricing of water resources has been demonstrated to reduce water wastage as customers have a heightened incentive not to leave their water taps running overnight or for weeks while they are on winter vacation.

4. Reduce the flow of storm water into wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plants operate most efficiently when the wastewater is of a consistent quantity and quality.

Due to system designs aging up to a century or older, many urban centres in Ontario and across Canada still have combined sewer systems.

In the case of heavy precipitation or snow melt – isn’t this the year for massive volumes of melting snow? – many wastewater treatment plants are overwhelmed by a huge surge of water which often results in untreated wastewaters flowing directly into rivers and lakes.

One remedy is to ensure that eavestroughs and other storm water sources are disconnected from the sanitary sewer systems. Another remedy is to ensure that combined sewer systems are phased out so that storm waters flow directly to the rivers and lakes with minimal if any treatment, leaving the plant to handle the consistent volumes of commercial and residential wastes that it was designed to handle.

We continue to rely on our municipal, provincial and federal leaders to recognize the true cost and value of water, and trust that they will make the necessary changes to ensure that the water infrastructure is financially sustainable, affordable and readily available to all who need it.

Frank Zechner is Executive Director of the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association (OSWCA).

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