Customer Successes
Ensuring Quality
WaterTrax Utility Service clients are using WaterTrax to manage the increasing amount of data, to keep up with regulatory requirements and to meet reporting needs. WaterTrax lets them focus on the important tasks that ensure excellent water quality for the health of their communities and the environment.
See how our clients are benefiting from the WaterTrax solution.
City Of Davis
“I was having trouble finding things in Access,” says Bob Schoech, Principal Utility Program Supervisor for the city, which services a population of 66,000. “Sometimes I couldn’t find what I was looking for and when I did it was occasionally in duplicate. ”
“I knew how I could use this technology right away,” he recalls. “One of my goals at the utility was to instill some process. While I originally set up a system that carefully identified the wells, over time samples would get labeled differently. Small changes to the identification of the wells crept in and made it difficult to query and find data that made sense.”
“WaterTrax creates a system that makes the data collection consistent and establishes a discipline in our operation.”
He appreciates the automatic notification he receives when a water quality result is outside the utility’s normal operating range, especially the emails that reach him wherever he is. “We try to be diligent,” he says, “yet it can be difficult to manually screen water quality results against the MCLs when there is so much data to deal with.”
“I now know immediately when a sample might be close to the MCL, and being able to monitor this effortlessly is important to us. Knowing that I’m not missing any exceedance helps me sleep at night. With WaterTrax, we’ve not only significantly improved our ability to monitor the health of our wells, but also our ability to respond if and when necessary.”
San Jose Water Company
When it comes to public health, valuable water data must be taken seriously. The consequences of it going missing or unnoticed are severe. This is the data management challenge that the San Jose Water Company (SJWC) sought to address recently.
"With over 100 wells in our system, the time it took to respond to any problems was concerning." says Andy Grere, Manager of Water Quality and Operations. "With WaterTrax, we now have real-time data with email notification on the data. We have eliminated the lag-time for receiving lab results and now take immediate action on any notifications received. This was an important feature that attracted me to the WaterTrax product."
He has found that with the WaterTrax system, he can remain involved in daily operations without having to spend extensive time on the data management activities. "I have a more complete picture of our entire system. It has given me time to take on new responsibilities without losing sight of daily operations." He adds: "Our commitment to the public is 100 per cent compliance of the Safe Drinking Water Act. With WaterTrax we have an improved data management system with shared responsibility and accountability, enhanced water quality education for our employees, and improved decision-making. By using this service, we continue to meet and surpass our commitment to the public."
> San Jose Water Company Case Study
Town of Newmarket
"The Ontario Ministry of the Environment requires a report of minimum and maximum readings for test results," says Bill Wilson, Water and Wastewater Supervisor of the Town of Newmarket. "I used to spend hours thumbing through pages and pages of historical data in order to compile quarterly and yearly reports."
He turned to the WaterTrax utility service for help and in short order the town had a state-of-the-art data management system.
"With the WaterTrax service we are prepared to respond to the Ministry of the Environment and to protect our community," Mr. Wilson says. "It gives us the means to provide information with the push of a button."
The time savings were remarkable. "Simply by logging onto the service, I have immediate access to all of my water quality data. Formatting, trending, and analyzing these data is now a simple task. Furthermore, the WaterTrax service identifies any clerical errors in data entry immediately. Our reports have greater accuracy than ever before."
Why does he feel the service has been valuable for the Town of Newmarket? Mr. Wilson says it has allowed him to spend more time on other projects and thus to increase productivity.
Because WaterTrax is a web-based service, he even has the option of viewing information from his home computer.
"I have regularly commented on my success with WaterTrax with other municipalities in the greater Toronto area, several which have since come online," he says. "It’s simply a great service.
SaskWater
When new water utility regulations came into effect at the beginning of 2004 requiring increased monitoring, testing and reporting, SaskWater sought help from WaterTrax in managing water quality data for Wakaw-Humboldt, a regional supply system serving almost 10,000 residents in ten communities located across the central area of the province.
"We didn’t expect it," says Darin Orb, Senior Technologist, "but WaterTrax is now part of our training program and a supplement to our training manuals and tools. Both new and existing employees want to use the service because it’s so easy to click the mouse and get information on analytes and their health implications when they need them."
SaskWater needed to find a way to record water quality test results from diverse communities in such a way that its head office and satellite offices would have immediate access to the information for the preparation of monthly reports. Regulations require utilities to maintain operational logs of test results for five years.
Al McMillan, SaskWater’s Director of Water Treatment Operations, says WaterTrax introduced the company to the latest technology for water quality data management without a substantial investment by it in either capital or operating costs.
"Having the information available in a timely and accurate manner gives me confidence in dealing with stakeholders," he says, "and especially when talking to our customers."
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