Fort Nelson delivers an average of 400 m³ of water treated per day for residential and industrial use

The Northern Rockies region, northeast of Columbia Brtitanica, is blessed by a significant affluence and diversity of natural resources as well as the legacy and cultural attributes. During the last four decades, the region has experienced cycles of ups and downs due to the growth and decline of numerous resources and development activities. Proposals have been submitted of interesting development such as the development of Gas from shale of the river Horn - Horn River Shale Gas Development--an association that would unite the communities of the Regional Municipality of Northern Rockies Fort Nelson First Nation with government agencies and oil and gas industries.

To support this partnership, installations for the treatment of water and sewage of the Regional Municipality of Northern Rockies - network of pumping stations and other facilities - produce the water needed to carry out the operations of the oil and gas segment and the activities of forestry and mining, as well as serving its population of 5.000 inhabitants approximately. They have a station of large water which supplies water for those who fall outside the municipal system and for trucks carrying water for operations such as hydraulic fracturing oil and gas segment.

"Fort Nelson boasts a large automated station of water, which delivers an average of 400 m³ of treated water per day for residential and industrial use. This station is fully integrated within the Scada system of the municipality, which facilitates the mass flow monitoring, alarm for traces of heat and boiler systems, as well as trends in the residual levels of chlorine in the water that is dispensed, etc., "says Michael Ferguson, specialist electrical and automation for the Northern Regional Municipality.

According to Ferguson, recently the municipality moved Siemens FactoryLink to PcVue to make use of their Scada system. Also mentioned that the Fort Nelson's Scada system includes 22 RTU Motorola Ace in many of the pumps and pumping solutions, communicating through a network of Radio IP of 900 MHz. "we have two Motorola (platform Ace3600) IP ports, which already have some configuration. IP ports are the connecting link between the network of RTU and management servers (also configured). Our servers are located in the municipality water treatment plant."

The Fort Nelson's Scada system includes 22 RTU Motorola Ace many of pumps and pump sumps.

Thanks to the help of your reseller with added value, CTH Systems, they chose package Scada PcVue independent of hardware that integrates seamlessly with IM-Scada of CTH Systems, advanced software for communication and measurement of multiple protocols. "CTH Systems supplied the key component (IM-Scada software) that allowed the rapid transition to PcVue," said Ferguson. CTH Systems used the construction tool called 'Smart Generator' to move applications from the Northern Rockies to a safer and more robust Scada architecture. PcVue and CTH IM-Scada software conditions these servers as well as in historical data bases.

This installation of Fort Nelson is also the first and only municipal resource of British Columbia serve the industry, residents and the business. It meets more than 10% of the province and includes much of the enormous development of Gas from shale of the river Horn. Ferguson manages the electrical systems, process control, automation and communication between components of the infrastructure of water and sewage for the municipalities.

Today the Fort Nelson's Scada system performs around 8,000 tasks. Major projects underway, as the new station of UV disinfection to treat waste water, the system is destined to grow. The Fort Nelson water treatment process begins taking raw water of the Muskwa River, downstream of the junction of the Alaska highway bridge. There are many critical processes involved in filling the water reserves of the municipalities. The initial pumping of the Muskwa river water is performed in stages with PID control to cope with the enormous pressure and control the flow rates.

Data collected by Scada.

"The water treatment process is not a peaceful process for us. The process variables such as turbidity, color and organic are influenced by things such as the climatic conditions. For example, after an avalanche of mud hit on the pump of the River from which we drew water, "said Ferguson.

CTH supplied an engineering support that allows the municipality to export the information in the form of files.CSV reports service and trend called 'FlowWorks' generation. FlowWorks allows entry of information with various algorithms such as average considering the time, allowing staff see trends, and generate reports. In addition CTH has added historical and trends in real time as a feature of the IM-Scada driver. This function provides the necessary information to make decisions about how to optimize operations.

As Ferguson continues to work to develop the potential of the Fort Nelson wastewater and water Scada system, plans to integrate PcVue with other management applications such as its work order system. "The aim of our philosophy of responsible management and preventive maintenance is 'linking' systems such as Scada, PDA, the work order application software," says Ferguson.

Data collected by Scada.

Ferguson is currently working to obtain automatically work orders based on the times of pump operation and pressure changes that indicate marks of wear, etc. In addition, I'd like to be able to see the information of the system - alarms, pressure and levels - from a mobile device such as an iPhone, which is now possible using the latest version of the driver IM-Scada.

Currently, PcVue is configured to have a simulation by site along with configured pop-up Windows, so if you need additional details about a pumping station or certain critical values, an operator can, with a simple click in the icon, open a pop-up window that gives you the information you need.

PcVue will contribute to the efforts of Fort Nelson to reduce unexpected equipment replacements and repairs. This is possible through uns alarm system and reports to give account of problems at an early stage. The use of an automated system Scada is essential to prevent downtime of water and wastewater services provided by this growing municipality.