Supporting Water and Wastewater Utility Decision-making During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Canadian Water Network (2020)
Challenge
Municipalities and utilities are responsible for providing essential water and wastewater services for communities across Canada. This service becomes even more critical during a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canada’s rapidly evolving situation and high level of uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged business-as-usual for water and wastewater utilities, requiring modifications to staffing and operations and the prioritization of activities, including ongoing maintenance and construction projects. Protecting the health and safety of field and operations staff while also delivering safe drinking water and reliable wastewater treatment to Canada’s communities has been paramount during this time.
When provincial public health agencies started advising Canadians to practice social distancing and to work from home wherever possible, the City of Calgary approached Canadian Water Network (CWN) to host a peer sharing call with leaders from the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium. We reached out to the Consortium’s leadership group, who quickly agreed that there was a need to exchange knowledge and best practices with other utilities as they responded to the crisis.
Project
Since March 20, 2020, CWN has hosted and facilitated weekly discussions with up to 48 decision makers from up to 30 large and mid-sized water and wastewater utilities across Canada. These discussions have helped utility leaders plan, prioritize and respond to the pandemic to ensure continuity of services while also protecting the health and safety of staff. The calls concluded on July 24, 2020 with the understanding that CWN would reconvene the group if there are subsequent waves of the pandemic. Initially, the meetings were to support members of the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium’s leadership group. However, given the unprecedented situation and the clear benefit to others outside the network, CWN opened the discussions to other municipalities, with the goal of providing support to the broader municipal community.
The meetings have been modelled on CWN’s prior Strategic Sharing Groups for the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium, which provide meaningful peer-to-peer sharing opportunities on emerging strategic issues. CWN facilitates an environment for confidential dialogue among participating senior municipal/utility managers, and where appropriate, invites leading experts to share their knowledge. The discussion is directed by the group, with support from CWN staff who frame the issue; facilitate discussions; invite relevant expert guests; create meeting captures; and use critical takeaways and learnings to shape future Consortium initiatives to support the municipal community.
The objectives of the weekly meetings have been to exchange ideas and approaches for planning, prioritizing and delivering water and wastewater services, including:
- Keeping staff safe during the pandemic
- Maintaining or temporarily scaling back water, wastewater and stormwater services
- Better understanding shared utility challenges and opportunities during emergency response
There have been several common challenges that utilities have been encountering during the pandemic. Discussions around the table during the COVID-19 Strategic Sharing Group calls have included:
- Developing safe work protocols at treatment facilities and in the field
- Securing supply chains, especially for personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Communicating with staff about worker safety, new protocols and compensation
- Business continuity planning, as well as prioritization of operations and capital projects
- Planning for contingencies like staff exposure or illness, shelter-at-work scenarios and daycare
- Communicating with the public about financial relief and impact of non-flushables
- Seeking regulatory relief from provincial authorities for less critical testing/reporting, flexibility on staffing for facility operation
- Adjusting to changes in water demand and revenue
- Planning for when and how to safely return to ‘normal’ operations
The water and wastewater utility leaders in the COVID-19 Strategic Sharing Group brought a broad range of locally-specific experience, responses and expertise to the discussion. A range of topics were included on the weekly meeting agendas, directed by the participants’ interests and needs.
Outcomes
Water and wastewater utility leaders across Canada have benefited from the COVID-19 Strategic Sharing Group meetings by learning from one another. The quality of the discussion has been valuable because of the deep level of experience and expertise of the meeting participants, who were able to share their insights in a trusted, confidential space. As the meetings progressed, the discussion initially moved from identifying urgent critical challenges to sharing the strategies and practices needed to respond to them. Utility approaches and the rationale used for the approaches were critical at this juncture. For example, utilities shared strategies in sourcing PPE, making their own sanitizer and reinforcing public communication messaging. Recently, the discussion has been shifting to the issues that lie ahead such as recommissioning buildings that were shut down, revenue projections, contingency planning for the eventual return to full staffing and operations.
Strategic sharing of information and best practices has evolved over the series of meetings from response to proactive planning for scaling back up. Consequently, CWN then started to invite key experts to share with the group key aspects to be considered to return to work. On April 24, Dr. Michèle Prévost, Professor in Civil Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal and NSERC Industrial Chair on Drinking Water at the Natural Sciences provided information on recommissioning water systems and operations safely following the shut-down of large public and commercial buildings. Future experts will include municipal financial forecasting and managing levels of service for the new-normal.
A summary of utility challenges and responses discussed in the COVID-19 Strategic Sharing Group over the course of the pandemic is now available:
During the Strategic Sharing Group meetings, CWN has also been sharing leading research and practice from across the globe. A publicly-available list of online resources for water and wastewater leaders was curated and updated weekly (last updated July 13, 2020). The Global Water Research Coalition introduced a global sharing platform for utility leaders, based in part on CWN’s Strategic Sharing Group for Canadian utilities. CEO Bernadette Conant has been coordinating a national coalition on wastewater surveillance of COVID-19 and was able to inform the meeting participants as this initiative developed.
