1. The Role of Smart technologies in Extension of Infrastructure Life
I’m serving as the Chairman of a new SWAN North American Alliance. I would like to first thank the main leaders involved in organizing this workshop: Seth Cutler, Shannon Casey and especially Qualcomm for hosting us.
Marc Bracken
GM, VP, Echologics
Chairman, SWAN North American Alliance

2. SWAN North American Alliance
Goal: To accelerate smart water/wastewater development in North America through the SWAN Forum’s collective, global industry expertise
Partners: 3M, Bentley, Bluefield Research, CH2M, CompTIA, DC Water, Echologics, EMA, Eramosa, EPA, FATHOM, Frost & Sullivan, GE Water, Global Water Technologies, Global Water Works, Hach, Kisters, Qualcomm, S::can, Schneider Electric, Sensus, SmartCover Systems, Smart Utility Systems, TaKaDu, Trimble, and Xylem
Why join?
Free workshops, specialized webinars, and a centralized source for smart water info
Collaborate with fellow utilities and solution providers across the U.S. and Canada
Launched in 2016, the Alliance is now open for free for all water players in the US and Canadian water sectors to join.
This Alliance is part of SWAN, the Smart Water Networks Forum - a global non-profit which brings together key players in the water sector to accelerate the awareness and adoption of data-driven technologies in water and wastewater networks worldwide.
The goal of the Alliance is to focus on North America.
Here are the SWAN Forum lead partners who are collaborating together to advance the water industry through different subgroups: Events, Outreach, Policy, Research, and Partnerships each comprised and led by SWAN members.
The Alliance is now free to join and in 2016 held its first meet-and-greet at WEFTEC, as well as a free webinar featuring DC Water, the EPA and GE. We plan to hold annual workshops and offer several webinars, as well as create a centralized portal for smart water information
Here is a link to sign up. Also feel free to reach out to me or Amir Cahn, the SWAN Executive Director who is here for more information.
Join and learn more:

3. The Smart Water Hub
This slide shows SWAN’s global membership, which represent leading global water utilities, large companies, start-ups, engineering and consulting firms, academics and investors. You can see examples from North America, Australia, South America, Europe and Asia.

4. Buried Infrastructure Renewal
“Trillion dollar infrastructure deficit”
The Problem: No utility has the financing capability to fully replace all their buried infrastructure
Reliability Centered maintenance approach: age is not the only critical factor in probability of failure
Much of the buried infrastructure has significant remaining life
While the Alliance is free to join for now, there are several benefits to becoming a full SWAN member, such as…
Thanks again to our host Qualcomm – we hope you enjoyed the workshop.

5. Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission – Case Study
1,000 square miles service area
1.8 million residents
2 water filtration plants
14 water pumping stations
5,600 miles of drinking water pipelines
5,400 miles of wastewater pipelines
45 wastewater pumping stations
6 wastewater treatment plants
Office buildings and laboratory
4 depots with garage facilities
WSSC serves 1.8M people in 2 counties.

6. Replacing 55 miles of Water Distribution pipe per year based on a desktop model
Break rates continued to increase even though they were trying to replace the high failure rate pipe based on a model.
A condition assessment study determined that over 70% of the next year’s replacement pipe had significant remaining life.

7. Mitigating the risk by monitoring
Integrated processor, radio, and battery
High Sensitivity Sensor
Antenna
Only viable with our innovative sensor
Describe why we chose to install in hydrants

8. Case Study: San Antonio Water Systems (SAWS)

9. The problem SAWS: 5th largest sewer system in US
More than 5,000 miles of pipeline
More than 300 locations with distressed pipeline in need of “immediate” repair or replacement
Repair costs: > $20MM

10. The solution Real-time condition assessment of distressed pipes
SmartCover sewer monitoring
Acoustic level sensing alerts when there is a potential blockage forming
Reduction of cleaning frequency will increase sewer pipe life

11. ROI of Sewering Monitoring
SmartCover Program Results:
Period
> 925 spills saved
System coverage 0.3%
Gross savings ~ $4.9MM
NET SAVINGS ~ $2.7MM
Deferred capital: $20MM
> 10:1 cost savings

12. Thank you