TECH: Sewers, iPads, and drones among 5 innovations at work for clean water

Not all tech innovations are apps. Take a look at five innovations one utility has put to work for efficiency and water quality.

How do you innovate the lake?

Lake Erie is perhaps the most challenged of the Great Lakes, but with those challenges come opportunities for innovation. Sewers have been taken for granted as a significant technological advance, perhaps even since Cleveland installed its first sewers in the 1800s. Which is why it can be easy to overlook the vast amount of innovation at work and in design in the world of utilities.

Here are five examples we have working for clean water in the field that help to protect our Great Lake.

Drones are an eye in the sky

We are responsible for a regional stream network more than 420 miles long. When our Regional Stormwater Management Program launched in 2013, inspections of problem locations were documented on foot as workers physically waked the streams for planning purposes. But the most recent master-planning effort involves drone data collection. Aerial photography captures more raw images for site assessment, analysis and communication. Most recently, we covered 60 miles of the Cuyahoga River watershed with drone technology in less than two weeks.

Grading on a curve

Microtunneling involves boring a tunnel underground rather than opening up a trench at the surface. That alone is intended to minimize disruption during construction. But our Dugway West Interceptor Relief Sewer also featured a rarely used technology known as curved microtunneling. It eliminated two access shafts at the surface, saving money and reducing impacts on the neighborhood above the project.

iPads keep documents and data at the ready

Our sewer maintenance and stormwater inspection and maintenance teams use iPads for GIS, asset location, and site investigations. Finding collection systems in the field in real time increases productivity, and the ability to report from the field improves response time.

Piloting treatment tech could save dollars, improve water quality

We have a 25-year plan to reduce Lake Erie pollution by 4 billion gallons a year. Doing so is costly, but proper planning has given us potential to save money through innovative approaches. One is chemically enhanced high-rate treatment. Implementing CEHRT at our plants, like Westerly shown here, eliminates the need for extensive construction, reduces operation and maintenance costs, and meets our water-quality requirements through simultaneous disinfection.

Maps tell the story

Storymaps are mashups. They use GIS and a variety of web tools to communicate through visually appealing maps like mobile storyboards. One example captures progress and success of our Green Infrastructure Grant program, pinpointing project locations, project photos, and descriptions of benefits. Future construction will be documented for customers in a similar way.

TECH: New neorsd.org coming soon, redesigned to give users better, easier access

Our neorsd.org homepage is being improved and streamlined to give customers what they need.

Next month, we'll launch a new and improved website that offers users a more personalized experience, cleaner landing pages, and better navigation to suit desktop and mobile devices.

Key user groups—like our residential customers, vendors looking for bid and project opportunities, and job seekers—will now have prioritized content that best addresses their needs. All users will still have access to our Customer Service staff and frequently asked questions now with a more manageable navigation bar.

We'll update as roll-out details become available.

GREEN: 6 ways green infrastructure takes root locally and regionally

Protect. Enhance. Preserve. Restore.

These goals are at the heart of the sweeping Green Infrastructure Policy that guides the projects we pursue and helps quantify their benefits to our region.

"The policy demonstrates a commitment," said Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, Deputy Director of Watershed Programs. "It lays out a future where green infrastructure is integrated across our program areas to lead the most effective applications of this technology."

Defining green

Definitions of "green infrastructure" can vary across cities and agencies, but the Sewer District embraces two clear definitions as follows:

Project Clean Lake green infrastructure
Related to our 25-year combined sewer overflow consent decree
The range of stormwater control measures that use plant/soil systems, permeable pavement, or stormwater harvest and reuse, to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to the combined sewer system.

Wet-Weather Program green infrastructure
Stormwater source control measures that store, filter, infiltrate, harvest and reuse, or evapotranspirate stormwater to increase resiliency of infrastructure by reducing stress on wet-weather drainage and collection systems which increase co-benefits in support of healthy environments and strong communities.

SPACE: "May the force pee with you," water recycling on the Space Station

It may not be a Star Wars galaxy far far away, but when astronauts are far from home, water is a life force.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield shows us how the water flows on the International Space Station, featuring a closed-loop treatment system in which the water astronauts use—even their wastewater—is recycled and made safe for drinking.

Many on earth are surprised to learn the water they flush is treated in a similar—but much larger—water cycle: The same water that flows down your toilet ultimately makes its way back to the environment, the common source for your drinking water at home. In Cleveland, the water cycle includes Lake Erie where we discharge treated water and from which Cleveland Water draws its clean-water supply.

It's the same cycle. The Space Station's is just much further from home.

RELATED STORIES:

• SPACE: How do astronauts pee in outer space?
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• TECH: How do toilets work on the International Space Station?

TRENDING: Never forget, it was a toilet that made time travel possible. #BackToTheFutureDay

Back To The Future's Doc Brown and his illustration of the time-travel-enabling flux capacitor.

The future has arrived. As the past. In the present. Thanks to a toilet.

October 21, 2015 has been declared Back To The Future Day, a day of '80s sci-fi nostalgia, the date to which Back To The Future's Marty McFly travels in the second movie of the trilogy in hopes of rescuing his future family.

What made the films' time travel possible was the flux capacitor. What made the flux capacitor possible? Remember, it was inventor Doc Brown slipping and falling off his toilet:

Sure, the flush toilet was considered the greatest medical advancement of the last 200 years. But in the BTTF universe, it became—more importantly—the greatest inspiration of the entire space-time continuum.

Heavy. We know.

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• TECH: Bath to the future? Toilet tech predictions for the year 2030 
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• MEDIA: WMMS host Alan Cox wants to attend our Sewer University?

NEWS: Could sewage be mined for gold? May also be great excuse to grow awesome beards.

Could human waste really be a source of valuable metals? Recent studies have shown potential, but realizing said potential is still a long way off in all likelihood.

The Huffington Post reported on a study that said human waste may be filled with microscopic particles of gold, silver, platinum, and copper, not to mention several other "nuisance" metals like lead.

More specifically, if these particles—measuring less than 1/100th the width of a human hair—are in human waste or at least entering the sewer system by other means, then they'd eventually make their way to wastewater treatment plants, according to studies, and could thereby be harvested for possible reuse, reduce the needs for mining, and also benefit the environment.

Working where we do, we asked a few of our experts.

"While it's an interesting idea," said our Westerly Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Frank Foley, when asked if there was any chance we could be sitting on a literal gold mine in our collection system, "I’m not sure if we currently have information that would allow us to quantify the amount of precious metals in our ash."

Westerly Wastewater Treatment Plant, Cleveland

Ash is the byproduct of the incineration that manages the "biosolids," organic materials left over from the wastewater treatment process.

He continued: "Another key, stated in the articles is that there would be a cost to extracting the metals from the ash. That would also have to be quantified to determine if it would be worth attempting to recover any of the material." Research presented in Denver this week said the recovery of these metals using current technology "may not be commercially viable."

Translation: Waaaaay too expensive.

Precious metals like these are not in our treatment plant permit limits, says Senior Environmental Specialist Elizabeth Toot-Levy, so we don't monitor for them. That makes an assessment more difficult. And while we do monitor industries like plating companies to make sure they are not discharging metals to the waste stream, one we have spoken to in the past about gold plating stated it takes extra precautions to ensure that their precious products are not flushed away.

So could sewage be a future source of the metals that make their way into our cell phones and computers? Time and further study will tell. In the meantime, we'll keep our eyes on what does flow into our plant, because you never know what you'll find.

LIST: Flush or fiction? 5 of our favorite toilet bowl myths and legends

Handy wipes are flushable: False.

They may say flushable on the package. They are common in bathrooms across the country. But because disposable wipes don't break down in the sewer system like toilet paper does, they can clog a home's plumbing and cause major issues in city treatment systems. Throw wipes in the trash rather than the toilet.

A city sewer system failed when the flow surged beyond capacity during a Super Bowl halftime show: False.

It's a legend that resurfaces every January as teams vie for the big game, but legend is all it is. Green Bay Metro Sewer District said even under the most extreme restroom-rush conditions, the likelihood of a major metropolitan sewer system being unable to handle the flow is slim to none.

Toilet water can splash onto your toothbrush: True.

The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters team proved aerosol droplets released from a flushing toilet can be shown to affect surfaces in restrooms. But the test also showed the reaches to which fecal bacteria can be found all throughout the house, something we're well aware of.

RELATED STORIES

• TECH: How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space?
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The rotation of the earth changes the direction water flows around a toilet bowl: False.

Does the direction of a toilet bowl's spinning water change depending on the hemisphere you're in? No. The earth's rotation does cause something known as the Coriolis effect, but the force of a flushing drain is, as How Stuff Works explains, "much too great to be influenced by something as miniscule as a single, 360-degree turn over the span of a day."

You should flush old or outdated medications down the toilet rather than just throwing them away: False.

Flushing pharmaceutical products is harmful to our water resources. Wastewater treatment plants are unable to remove these medications from the sewage, which means they end up in our waterways. It's best to drop old and unused medications in safe disposal locations and community collection events so they can be disposed of properly.

TECH: How to save your new iPhone 6+ if it falls in the toilet [#waittotweet]

Whether you're waiting in line for Apple's new iPhone 6 or still rocking your Blackberry, this can be useful.

Or better yet, you could just wait to tweet.

VIDEO: Watch how a toilet works in outer space. Because science.

ABC Entertainment News | ABC Business News

If you've ever wondered how astronauts go potty in space, here's a video. But don't worry, it's totally SFW.

This NASA clip featured on ABC News shows astronaut Cady Coleman playing with food in a very educational way to help answer one question that so many of us wonder. Using candy chocolate, Cady shows the Space Station toilet's suction, as well as how astronauts dispose of waste when their finished in the facilities.

Based on our previous blog posts, a toilet like this doesn't come cheap, but at least it will get a lot of attention even after its life in orbit is long gone. Fascinating, no?

TECH: Bath to the Future? Gadgets of 2030 could include smart bathroom fixtures

Great scott, this is heavy: The bathroom may become the new frontier of health-meets-household-technology over the next 16 years.

That's the prediction of Forum, one UK nonprofit which recently envisioned what kind of products consumers will yearn for in the year 2030.

Several of the concepts shared by Fast Company include a health-monitoring toilet and a touch-screen mirror that displays your current vital statistics.

HISTORY: Next time you tap an address into your GPS, thank a pigeon. #GISday

Image courtesy Wikipedia

Before there was Google Maps, there were pigeons.

Every November, GIS Day showcases geographic information system (GIS) technology that many of us use every day without even thinking about it. It's a large part of our work, and our own GIS team has routinely used the unofficial holiday as a soapbox for sharing little-known facts about the technology and its amazing potential.

GIS Analyst Eric Baker recently reflected on the history of remote and satellite imaging dating back to the 1800s. That history included references to the year 1906 when professional photographers would harness one-shot cameras to the breast of carrier pigeons.

TECH: Drinking water out of thin air

Genius.

In a region where the annual rainfall is practically zero, but the atmospheric humidity is 98%, a university designed a billboard that draws potable water out of the air.

Here's more on the story. Very fitting as we prepare to celebrate World Water Day this Friday.

LINK: To boldly go (to the bathroom) where no man has gone (to the bathroom) before

If you've ever wondered how astronauts do their business in space, the Smithsonian has the $50,000 facility on display.

It's easy to take our own toilet for granted, but when nature calls 230 miles above Earth, proper plumbing takes on an entirely new importance. And a much higher pricetag.

The Smithsonian's story says the investment in the functional model exhibit ($50,000) is only a fraction of the cost of the actual space-shuttle toilet that flew on Endeavor—$30 million.

But really? A toilet exhibit? Heck yeah, Smithsonian staff says.

The subject is so popular, says museum staffer Michael Hulslander, because “it is truly universal.” The first thing he thought when planning the exhibition was “oh my god, we need a toilet.”

Hey, being in the wastewater industry ourselves, we know plenty of people want to know (and are brave enough to ask), "Where does the poopie go?"

TECH: Are water utilities a target for hackers?

Photo by Getty Images courtesy bbc.co.uk

Earlier this month, an Illinois water utility confirmed it was the victim of an apparent cyber attack which led to the failure of one of its pumps. While Chicago's ABC affiliate reports that Federal authorities had not yet confirmed the details, the utility said foreign hackers gained control of the equipment using its computer system's remote access.  

UPDATE 2011 12/1: The DHS and FBI reported this evening that they have found no evidence of hacking.

UPDATE 2011 12/2: Wired ran a very detailed account of the "comedy of errors" that led to the original report.

It could be the first example of a cyber attack on a public utility, according to WLS-TV, but Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District officials are well aware that it would not be the last.

"This is an identified vulnerability nationally," said Jim Davidson, Safety and Security Manager, "not only for the water sector but for most of critical infrastructure including chemical, energy and transportation."

Many utilities, including the Sewer District, use a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to manage controls such as regulators and pumps remotely. That automation does not come without risks, according to Director of Information Technology Humberto Sanchez, and the Sewer District constantly reviews safety measures to protect its assets, employees, and the public.

"We conduct security assessments to validate how effective our security configurations and procedures are," Sanchez said, "because hackers and viruses have grown more sophisticated."

Davidson said both the hardware and the management of it are critical to maintain proper security. "Our physical security steps include installing and maintaining firewalls and screening networks for viruses. Procedurally, we restrict remote access and protect critical data through backups and storage in safe places."

There are other measures—some of which have been in place for years—by which the Sewer District further protects its system and infrastructure from "accidental impact or malicious intent," according to Plant Automation Engineer Scott Sander.

"It's an ongoing and growing responsibility," Sanchez added.