Ontario Clean W ater Agency 2012 Annual Report 11 OCW A T ools Evolution Pr ogram OTEP Having the right Information T echnology tools and strategies in place is essential if we want to continue to be an industry compliance leader particularly given the incr easingly stringent water and wastewater r egulatory envir onment OTEP which was established to support OCW A s objective of easily compiling pertinent operational data and making it available to our clients on demand continued to make pr ogr ess in 2012 Following the development of a detailed action plan the Agency established a Pr oject Management Of fce and conducted pilot studies for new Pr ocess Data Collection technology and handheld devices W e ar e always looking to pr ovide our clients with access to new and innovative services and that will enhance their operational ef fectiveness One of the ways that wer e doing this is by seeking out partners to explor e how new and emerging technologies can be used in the facilities we operate to cr eate ef fciencies r educe costs and positively impact the envir onment Descriptions of some of our r ecent partnerships follow Aeration is an important part of the wastewater tr eatment pr ocess that r equir es a signifcant amount of energy when conventional systems ar e used For the past thr ee years OCW A has been working with APGNeur os to help optimize our clients aeration systems by using highspeed turbo blowers in place of conventional blowers and fne bubble membrane systems instead of conventional aeration systems The intr oduction of these systems has helped achieve energy savings of up to 50 per cent along with r educed maintenance costs and lower gr eenhouse gas emissions The City of Kawartha Lakes Fleming College Centr e for Alter native W astewater T r eatment and OCW A have established an agr eement to collaborate on water r elated pr ojects As a r esult of the collaboration the municipality can achieve its economic development goals r elating to water Fleming College can pursue its applied r esear ch objectives in water and wastewater and OCW A will help deliver useful new technologies to market As part of OCW A s goal to be a good corporate citizen and pr ovide new technological options to our clients we ar e conducting a gr oundbr eaking pilot pr oject in Killaloe a small community in Easter n Ontario As part of the pr oject we ar e collaborating with SanEcoT ec a frm that has developed a system which uses stabilized hydr ogen per oxide to disinfect water pr oviding a viable alter native to chlorination Hydr ogen per oxide is mor e envir onmentallyfriendly than chlorine as it does not lead to the cr eation of trihalomethanes THMs potentially harmful bypr oducts that can sometimes be pr oduced when using chlorine OCW A also r ecently signed an MOU with M2 Renewables Inc to assess and validate their technologies in the tr eatment of municipal and select industrial wastewater The company s pr ocess involves the r emoval of suspended solids in infuent wastewater at the beginning of the tr eatment pr ocess which incr eases plant ef fciency and enables the conversion of waste pr oduct into a potential fuel for clean r enewable energy Other examples of OCW A s collaboration in action in 2012 include our partnerships with Mekor ot Global W ater Resour ces and Hydr omantis The Futur e in W ater Seeking Innovation and Collaboration