We are pleased to present the latest update from Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Canadian Municipal Water Consortium, a national network of utility leaders who share a common goal of advancing municipal water management.

Welcoming new members

We’re thrilled to announce the addition of two new members: the City of Waterloo and the City of Winnipeg. These municipalities join our network of senior leaders from 26 utility members who explore key issues and decision-making needs alongside their peers. Both the City of Waterloo and the City of Winnipeg bring a wealth of knowledge and experience. We are looking forward to bringing them into the consortium’s conversations.

Influencing national conversations

Katina Tam, senior program advisor, contributed an article to the January/February issue of Water Canada’s magazine. The article highlights strategies utilities can use to advance equity and affordability. Drawing from Canadian and international examples, it explores approaches to striking a balance between recovering full costs for water services while supporting residents’ equity needs.

Collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Planners

We’re excited to collaborate with the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) on the Summer 2024 issue of Plan Canada, Canada’s national planning magazine. This issue will focus on integrated planning to support effective water management. Topics covered will include integrating the water servicing and urban planning silos for water-wise cities, increasing urban densities and water needs, planning for the extreme, and building resilience.

Knowledge sharing and peer learning

Data governance

In January, the data strategic sharing group (SSG) convened to continue conversations about strategies to advance data governance and analytics. Meeting participants heard from Stephanie LeBlanc of Halifax Water, who presented an overview of the utility’s five-year data roadmap and key highlights. She also spoke about how the roadmap addresses key challenges that include eliminating siloes, increasing cross-departmental collaboration and engagement, and building the business case for executives.

Utilities also had an opportunity to discuss the steps they would need to take to develop and implement a data roadmap within their organizations, and strategies to ensure the successful advancement of the work. CWN hosted a follow-up meeting in February, where Xylem, one of CWN’s Innovation Partners, delivered a presentation on digital roadmaps. Tim Braun from Xylem, Reese Johnson from Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District and George Hawkins from Moonshot Missions gathered on a virtual panel to share their insights on what it means to digitally transform a utility. Conversations on this topic will continue when the group convenes again in the spring.

Stormwater management

The stormwater management SSG convened for its second meeting in March 2024. It delved into the development of robust stormwater strategies and pioneering management techniques. Frank Frigo from the City of Calgary shared insights from the city’s 2023 Stormwater Management Strategy, including the four cornerstones the city has identified in implementing the goals of the strategies. The group engaged in a discussion about the benefits of prioritizing stormwater management in utilities, the importance of identifying key collaborators in implementing stormwater strategies and navigating challenges that may hinder the implementation of stormwater management actions.

Investigating opportunities to address ‘forever chemicals’ in landfill leachate

Landfills are the primary destination for solid waste in Canadian communities. While most waste remains onsite, rainfall percolates through it and creates a pollutant-rich liquid known as leachate. This leachate, laden with chemical and biological constituents, is either treated at the landfill or transported to municipal wastewater facilities.

However, treatment levels vary and can still leave contaminants in the wastewater effluent, such as PFAS, which can harm ecosystem and human health. Rather than upgrading municipal treatment facilities to address trace contaminants, there is an opportunity to mitigate and manage harmful chemicals from a point source, such as landfill leachate, before they enter natural waterways.

In support of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to protect water quality, Environment and Climate Change Canada contracted CWN to explore sustainable landfill leachate pre-treatment technologies that can treat Chemicals of Mutual Concern. More information about this project is available here.

Staying informed about emerging contaminants

Members of the contaminants of emerging concern SSG are staying informed about global PFAS research and news by participating in a five-part PFAS webinar series hosted by the Global Water Research Coalition (in partnership with U.S. EPA). The webinar series covers topics like:

PFAS sources and occurrence in water.
Disposal and destruction of PFAS in residuals, addressing challenges and knowledge gaps.
Analytical methods for PFAS detection, confronting the limitations of detection limits versus toxicity assessments, and exploring new analytical advancements.
Treatment technologies and processes for effectively removing PFAS from public water systems.
Public perception and communication challenges surrounding PFAS.

More information about the webinar series is available here.

Coming up this spring

Virtual and in-person events will be in full swing over the next few months. We will host a webinar in April in partnership with one of our Innovation Partners, GHD. Join us to learn more about the Adaptive Pathway Planning framework and how others, globally, have used it to address deep uncertainty in planning for and implementing large water management projects.

In May, CWN will convene the affordability SSG for its annual meeting. Participants will share updates on the work their organizations are doing to address affordability and equity at the utility level. CWN will also host a regular meeting for the data SSG to continue conversations about how water utilities can advance data governance and analytics by applying key strategies, approaches and emerging tools. At both of these meetings, CWN will bring in experts who will share their insights on the topics of interest.

In May, CWN will also host an in-person meeting for the Consortium Leaders Group in Edmonton. In partnership with ARROW Utilities and EPCOR, CWN will bring together Consortium leaders from across Canada to discuss opportunities to discuss timely topics such as innovations in capital delivery and preparing for extreme drought, with a core thread of agile utility management in a landscape of uncertainty.