When a tap is turned on to fill a glass, few people think about whether the drinking water is safe.
But less than a decade ago, the Walkerton water contamination crisis made the entire country reexamine how it handles water treatment.
In May of 2000, the country was rocked by the news the small rural community of Walkerton had experienced Canada’s worst reported outbreak of E. coli contamination in its water supply, leaving seven people dead and hundreds suffering from symptoms of the disease.
An inquiry showed it could have been avoided and negligence was the culprit. With the world’s eyes watching lessons from the tragedy transformed how Canada looks at water treatment.
As part of the rebuilding process, the Walkerton Clean Water Centre (WCWC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, was created. The centre is a teaching facility for training owners, operators and operating authorities of drinking water systems to get hands-on experience using leading-edge treatment technology.
Three years ago The University of Western Ontario teamed up with WCWC, in partnership with Trojan Technologies, to create a summer graduate course on drinking water treatment.
The goal was to teach future engineers working in water treatment the latest technologies.
“This could have been avoided. What lacked was the education, knowledge and the ethics,” says Saad Jasim, Chief Executive Officer of WCWC and Civil and Environmental Engineering professor at Western.
“Walkerton changed the drinking water industry.”
Civil and Environmental Engineering department chair Ernest Yanful partnered with Jasim to provide the graduate course to 27 students this summer from Aug. 10-27.
Over the years, the course has grown in size (it started with 15 students) and in the range of disciplines from which it draws students.
It consists of two weeks of intensive lectures held at Western, followed by one week of hands-on pilot plant and laboratory training at WCWC.
GE Water & Process Technologies, a unit of GE Infrastructure, has been brought on board to give students experience in membrane technologies for drinking water treatment.
Industry experts are guest lecturers throughout the course.
WCWC provides funding for the students’ transportation, accommodation and meals in Walkerton.
“We try to teach students on some of the industrial concepts and the vast technologies used in drinking water so when they go to industry they are prepared,” says Jasim.
In Walkerton, the WCWC has a Technology Demonstration Facility equipped with conventional and advanced water treatment systems, monitoring and control instruments, a distribution system and numerous types of operating devices, such as valves and pumps.
Upon graduation, many students may be working with water treatment systems they are unfamiliar with, making their role as a consultant difficult. However, these students will be given a leg up by being exposed to the latest technology and experience troubleshooting at the WCWC, says Jasim.
“They operate it like they are operating a full treatment plant. They develop the chemicals, they use the monitoring devices, they operate it and they do the reporting required – exactly what is done in a full treatment plant.”
“They not only have the bench (skills) but they have the pilot skills which is one step closer to real life,” adds Yanful. “The advantage is they can actually see the whole process of treatment … Even though it is on a much smaller scale in terms of size and volume, the treatment scheme is the same as you have in real life.”
The pilot plant has the capacity to treat about 15 litres of water per minute, compared to an actual plant which processes millions of litres per day.
Yanful says the unique course has captured the attention of graduate students in civil and environmental, chemical and biochemical, mechanical and electrical engineering.
Industry leaders are taking note as highly trained and multi-disciplinary professionals are in high demand to work in water treatment plants.
“The issue of water is becoming very critical, not just in the province, but in Canada and the rest of the world,” says Yanful. “People are predicting that water, both quality and quantity, is going to be the next issue globally.
“There are many countries that are water-stressed. In Canada we have a lot of water, but the quality of water is still a challenge. Walkerton is still an example that even in Canada we cannot take the quality of water for granted.”
For more information, visit WCWC.