WCW24

Cityscapes were initially designed around a purpose and in the case of Winnipeg, it was being a hub for commerce and distribution. While practical for the time it was built, this design neglected natural processes from the beginning and the issues with these oversights will only grow overtime. Concrete environment - while an excellent medium for building foundations - are not what would be considered ideal for stormwater management and as such, require plenty of catch basins, piping and maintenance all to plan ahead for the 100-year flood event. Soil as Infrastructure for Stormwater Retention, Detention and Water Quality will detail an approach using soil cells to allow for an uncompacted soil beneath concrete to be utilized for stormwater management. This approach involves placing support structures underneath concrete where there typically would be a 95 Proctor compacted aggregate used to support the hardscapes in urban landscapes. These structures provide a 90% void space that can be filled with uncompaced soil, allow for utilities to run through them rather than underneath and can hold a firetruck on top of them to allow for the typical loading the compacted medium under concrete may need to endure. The pore space of uncompacted soil allows for stormwater to remain inside the urban environment, acting as an additional layer of flood mitigation where it would normally be considered a hazard. This water can then be utilized for social infrastructure - namely, growing large mature trees - which add to stormwater mitigation through interception in their large canopies, enrich the surrounding environment and create more desirable and prestigious landscapes. These projects include blocks on Broadway and Selkirk Mainstreet, two of the earliest developments in Manitoba's history as a trading hub. With several projects around Manitoba already constructed or currently scheduled, soil cells are already demonstrating effects when it comes to flood mitigation, peak flow reduction and water quality. An area of potential for this technology for this approach would be using it to reduce the size of detention ponds suburban developments. This would allow for new developments to make full use of the land or to substitute in some other feature.

There has been a proliferation of IoT (Internet of Things) devices that are used by municipalities to collect data from Collections Systems, including data from Pump Stations, flow meters, level meters and rain gauges. Integrating this Collection System data with data from numerous other sources is part of the desire by Municipalities to create “Smart” Cities, but that integration has proved to be a daunting task. This presentation will therefore focus on what is available and can be done today, to collect flow/level/rain data, then send it to a cloud-environment where it can be analyzed, which leads to informed decisions, whether on a near-real time basis for operational control, or for more long-term planning by engineers for infrastructure decisions. Topics discussed will include: - Goal of “Smart” Cities, and obstacles to date. - Current monitoring technologies for Flow, Level and Rain meters. - Data collection methods. - Cloud-based software platforms for Data Storage, Analysis and Machine Learning applications. - Sharing data with other software platforms via the use of API's and other transfer methods. - Uses of Collections Systems flow, level and rain data for Operations and for Engineering.

Rossdale and E.L. Smith Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) provide drinking water to the City of Edmonton and surrounding areas and are operated by EPCOR Water Services Inc. (EPCOR). These plants are critical infrastructure identified as vulnerable to overland flood damage from the adjacent North Saskatchewan River. Stantec Consulting Ltd. (Stantec) was commissioned in 2020 to quantify the flood risk further and undertake the preliminary design of flood mitigation measures at both WTP sites. The project is now in the detailed design phase, with construction scheduled to commence in Summer 2024. The design consists of a combination of earthen embankments and cast-in-place concrete floodwalls at each site that meets the design basis of a 1:500-year river flood plus 1.0 m of freeboard. Temporary flood control measures also form part of the design at Rossdale WTP. The flood mitigation infrastructure is designed following the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) standards. Several supporting studies and investigations were required to support the design phase. These included geotechnical soil sampling, non-intrusive geophysical investigation, hydrotechnical analysis of the river, stormwater and civil grading design, underground utility review, waste stream mitigations, landscape architecture design, and regulatory approval planning. The design considers ground conditions, groundwater seepage, underground infrastructure, and floodwater erosion potential. It also adapts to local constraints such as minimizing tree removals, reducing total wall height, and maintaining a naturalized aesthetic to match its river valley setting while still meeting the appropriate design standards. Each WTP site presented unique challenges to the design team. Rossdale WTP is situated centrally within the City of Edmonton and bordered by a residential neighborhood, the river, the historic Rossdale Generating Station, and RE/MAX® Field. Each bordering stakeholder required specific attention to minimize the impacts of the project. Rossdale WTP has been an operational facility since the early 1900s, which presented challenges with existing underground infrastructure and space constraints. E.L. Smith WTP is a more straightforward site than Rossdale WTP; however, a specific challenge was the river's proximity to critical infrastructure. A complex structural design was required to situate a floodwall between existing buildings and the river. The project uses a Construction Management at Risk (CMAR) delivery approach, with Graham Infrastructure LP as the construction contractor. This approach allowed for greater collaboration and enhanced the design process by having regular feedback on constructability, schedule, and cost. The CMAR team also adopted the practice of regularly meeting in a dedicated boardroom at Stantec's office to work closely together and develop a sense of mutual ambition to deliver the project successfully.

The City of Portage la Prairie, Water Treatment Plant supplies an average of 24 million litres per day to the City of Portage, three regional water systems, and to several local large food processing industries. Raw water is obtained from the Portage Reservoir, which is a small water impoundment on the Assiniboine River. This impoundment was created from the construction of a dam control structure on the Assiniboine River, which connects with the Red River in Winnipeg; and the creation of a flood control spillway structure named the Assiniboine River Diversion which directs water, in times of flood, into a man-made diversion channel running to Lake Manitoba. During the spring melt in 2023 the Assiniboine River provided the City of Portage la Prairie, Water Treatment Plant with a "perfect storm" of issues arising from its raw water intake. These problems reduced the volume of water available for treatment in the facility and resulted in temporary water curtailments for local industry. This session will detail from an operations perspective what the conditions were that led to this previously unseen problem, how the conditions affected the plant and distribution system, and how the facility's resilient staff overcame them. The presentation will conclude with a brief summary of future construction plans for the facility, highlighting the new intake structure.

John D'Or Prairie is the administrative center of Little Red River Cree Nation, located 125 km east of High Level, Alberta. The community Water Treatment Plant was completed in 2019. After a few years of operation, the existing groundwater supply wells were not achieving the anticipated yield, requiring supplementation from seasonally available surface water sources to keep up with peak raw water demands. This situation was escalated to an emergency in May 2023 when the Paskwa Wildfire (HWF-030) displaced approximately 1,700 persons from the neighbouring community of Fox Lake to John D'Or Prairie. To mitigate the risk of a raw water shortage, a permanent raw watermain to the Peace River was implemented, with temporary pumping measures over the winter of 2023-2024 and plans for a future permanent intake structure. The design and construction of the ~15-km watermain was completed in a timeline of less than 6 months. Other key elements of the project included upgrading the existing WTP membrane system to allow for the increased demand and switch from a groundwater raw water source to a surface water source and conversion of the process waste cell to a raw water storage cell. Unique considerations had to be made at the design and administration stages of this project to account for the remote work location and emergency basis of the project.