Introduction
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) oversees the collection, treatment, transmission, and distribution of the San Francisco water supply.
Need for Implementation
The SFPUC monitors numerous points for turbidity, pH, disinfectant residual, and conductivity through its SCADA system. Water Quality regulations set forth by the California Department of Health Services require monthly reporting of several water quality parameters. Turbidity and disinfectant residual must be recorded every four hours as well as daily minimums, maximums, and averages at several locations throughout the water system. This information, while available electronically, was not in a reportable format. Data was recorded on circular charts and then evaluated and entered manually into Excel spreadsheets. This method proved to be tedious and time consuming. Additionally, spreadsheets are required that calculate contact time based on various water quality parameters as well as system conditions such as flow. Again, all of this data was available electronically but was still being manually entered into spreadsheets. A solution was needed that would allow the WQB to mine and utilize data in an easy, user-friendly fashion.
The need for long-term archiving of data is necessary for the WQB in terms of regulatory compliance and research. While there is no regulation yet that states the length of time all electronic data must be stored, the regulations do state that specific treatment plant data must be stored for at least two years. Aside from its regulatory role, the WQB frequently participates in industry studies to develop improved treatment methods. This often requires data that has been collected over several years. Requests for this data often resulted in time-consuming searches through filing cabinets and network searches for old reports. Locating data for in-house studies and trending also proved difficult.
Solution
The path around the data roadblock that WQB was experiencing was found in InStep Software's eDNA software and support. eDNA is a real-time monitoring package that is ideal for distribution of current and historical information throughout large enterprises. eDNA was selected based on its speed of data collection, ability to interface with existing instrumentation and its cost effective licensing structure. A standard eDNA installation was conducted throughout SFPUC, interfacing eDNA to the process/control system. The information collected from the process/control system was then available to anyone in the enterprise. As the project developed, more users in the government infrastructure discovered how easy it was to get data from eDNA and the number of desktops plugged into eDNA increased dramatically. Although eDNA was already used by other departments within the SFPUC, a customized solution for the WQB was needed.
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