The Town of Olds will partner with residents and businesses on a unique project to conserve water and potentially save thousands of municipal dollars each year.
The municipality has hired CMI Services Ltd. of Calgary to install special equipment that will detect any leaks within the system.
About 40 of these devices have been installed this summer.
“It seems like more and more each year, the town is committed to conservation,” said municipal infrastructure technician Shaun Fox. “If we can find leaks that are not servicing, that just saves the town money and furthers that goal.”
Fox anticipates the towns could realize thousands of dollars in annual savings.
“We want to be proactive and catch it before it becomes really big and the customer notices,” said Fox.
The project’s cost is $350,000.
This is the first time that MLog, a network of leak detecting sensors, will be deployed in Canada.
Each night, the sensors analyze sound patterns in their environment, detecting new, evolving and pre-existing leaks automatically.
“It’s a little data collector that measures the vibrations on the pipe,” said Fox. “There are always movements in water pipes because water is always moving in the system. This measures the movement.”
The leak detecting sensor will be attached to the service line directly next to the water meter.
Not every service line will need one.
An engineering study is being done to show where each of these sensors should be located and at what distance between each other, Fox said. The MLogs will transmit data between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day.
“There’s a little controller that goes in the vehicle that you turn on,” Fox said. “As you are driving around, you can collect the data.” The MLog can store up to 11 days worth of data.
Fox anticipates a total of 1,300 of the devices will be installed, hopefully by September.
Identified representatives of CMI Services will be knocking on doors and setting up appointments to install the logging devices.
ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com