Design-build package plant versus design-bid-build
Design-build package plant versus design-bid-build for First Nations
The Assembly of First Nations provided a powerful forum Feb 6-8, 2018 for a discussion on how to resolve First Nations water issues. During one afternoon, Scott Foster of BI Pure Water proposed Design-Build of treatment plants rather than Design-Bid-Build. A productive discussion ensued. We welcome your comments.
The issues:
Potable Water Health Problems
- Many treatment plants are outdated or are undersized for growing communities.
- Hundreds of “Boil Water Notices” exist for the main treatment plants across Canada.
- Boiling doesn’t remove dangerous items like Arsenic or Manganese.
- Residents need to resort to expensive and inconvenient bottled water.
- Small groups of residences are beyond the distribution pipeline and not served.
Challenges
- Many of the treatment plants are located in remote areas so it is difficult to bring in supplies.
- Often the community wasn’t consulted as to their primary water needs.
- Some plants are difficult to operate and cause water outages or downtime.
- Operator training and plant capital maintenance is often difficult to fund.
- Many plants don’t have remote monitoring.
- Very high cost of Design-Bid-Build plants.
New solutions are being developed:
- Community Circle approach to gathering information and defining the needs of the residents.
- Cost and time savings by delivering standardized treatment systems.
- Modern communications, remote monitoring, and new technologies make it a little easier to maintain the system
- Design-Build approach to supplying the treatment systems vs the old Design-Tender-Build method.
Design-Build Your Water Treatment System:
- Meet with Elders and Council to assess community needs
- Determine Operator needs
- Review potable water regulations
- Engineering process, meet all requirements, consider also “Design for Resilience”
- Specify low maintenance system
- Review with regulators
- Program the system
- Remote monitoring
- Manufacture & test in plant
- Inspection by owner and approval
- Deliver to site
- Commissioning, training, servicing
- Design-builders in general have ability to service plants over long term and provide correct replacement parts
- Design-builders can remotely support the operator with proper electronics.
Top photo: (1) Checking out tank maintenance at Middle River First Nation; (2) Design-build package treatment plant delivered to location in Vernon; (3) treatment plant operator Gammale performs a backwash; (4) Monitoring a treatment system from a cel phone and remote computer
Potable Water Requirements
Water suppliers are required to provide long term plans to reach the goals of:
- 99.99% inactivation of viruses – “Bugs”
- 99.9% removal or inactivation of Giardia Lamlia and Cryptosporidium – “Cysts”
- Two treatment processes for all surface drinking water systems
- 0.1 NTU Turbidity – “Water clarity”
- Zero tolerance for total and fecal coliforms and E.Coli – “Worst bugs”
Challenges
- Many of the treatment plants are located in remote areas so it is difficult to bring in supplies.
- Often the community wasn’t consulted as to their primary water needs.
- Some plants are difficult to operate and cause water outages or downtime.
- Operator training and plant capital maintenance is often difficult to fund.
- Many plants don’t have remote monitoring.
- Very high cost of Design-Bid-Build plants.
New solutions are being developed:
- Community Circle approach to gathering information and defining the needs of the residents.
- Cost and time savings by delivering standardized treatment systems.
- Modern communications, remote monitoring, and new technologies make it a little easier to maintain the system
- Design-Build approach to supplying the treatment systems vs the old Design-Tender-Build method.
Design-Build Your Water Treatment System:
- Meet with Elders and Council to assess community needs
- Determine Operator needs
- Review potable water regulations
- Engineering process, meet all requirements, consider also “Design for Resilience”
- Specify low maintenance system
- Review with regulators
- Program the system
- Remote monitoring
- Manufacture & test in plant
- Inspection by owner and approval
- Deliver to site
- Commissioning, training, servicing
- Design-builders in general have ability to service plants over long term and provide correct replacement parts
- Design-builders can remotely support the operator with proper electronics.
Top photo: (1) Checking out tank maintenance at Middle River First Nation; (2) Design-build package treatment plant delivered to location in Vernon; (3) treatment plant operator Gammale performs a backwash; (4) Monitoring a treatment system from a cel phone and remote computer
Potable Water Requirements
Water suppliers are required to provide long term plans to reach the goals of:
- 99.99% inactivation of viruses – “Bugs”
- 99.9% removal or inactivation of Giardia Lamlia and Cryptosporidium – “Cysts”
- Two treatment processes for all surface drinking water systems
- 0.1 NTU Turbidity – “Water clarity”
- Zero tolerance for total and fecal coliforms and E.Coli – “Worst bugs”
