Wireless leak detection keeps the streets of Medicine Hat dry

“You don’t want to have to dig up the street outside a school at the same time that parents are trying to drop off their kids.”

A burst water main can wreak havoc: shutting down roads, interrupting critical services, inconveniencing businesses and residents, and causing costly damage. Full ruptures can often be prevented, but only if smaller leaks are identified and located before they become problematic. To do that, the City of Medicine Hat needed a more accurate and efficient system for finding leaks. The City is always looking for innovative, future-focused improvements, so Field Operations Manager Brian Graham partnered with Bell to implement a first-of-its-kind solution in Canada.

Ineffective leak detection raises the risk of water damage

Traditional leak detection had been a time-consuming, inefficient, and imprecise process for the Medicine Hat Field Operations team. “My crews could confirm there was a leak,” says Graham, “but they couldn’t necessarily pinpoint its exact location.” Suspected leaks were usually identified only when water or puddles appeared. When detected, two-person crews would be sent out with portable leak correlators that they would attach to water pipes or hydrants to listen for the telltale sound of a leak.

The process could be highly disruptive, often requiring crews to dig multiple holes in the road to find the right spot. As Graham explains, “this added time and cost to every repair job, while also shortening the lifespan of the road itself.” The lack of early warning also increased the risk of a leak developing into a full break in the water main, which would cause even more damage, cost and inconvenience.

More notice means better planning

Graham’s research led him to Bell and the EchoShore DX permanent leak-monitoring platform. One of Bell’s Municipal Operations solutions, the platform provides continuous remote monitoring using sensors that are easily installed onto fire hydrants and integrated into Medicine Hat’s existing geographic information system. The ultra-sensitive acoustic sensors can detect and locate even the smallest leaks – and assess their size.

“A pinhole leak sounds very different from a larger hole,” says Graham. “So we can tell right away if this is something we need to go out there and fix now, to avoid more extensive damage.”

This added insight has significantly benefited the City and residents because it means that Graham’s crews can coordinate with local businesses and institutions to schedule non-urgent repairs to minimize disruption. For example, with advance notice of road closures, the local hospital can set up alternate emergency department access and ensure that ambulance drivers are aware of it before they arrive.

Schools have also benefitted from the new solution. “Instead of suddenly being faced with road closures in the middle of the afternoon – which causes chaos with parents trying to pick up their kids and buses having to find new places to park – we can arrange to close the road during March Break or the summer,” says Graham.

The closures themselves are also much shorter than they used to be. Thanks to hyper-precise detection capabilities of the solution, Graham’s crews can find leaks within a metre of their actual location. As a result, they can dig just one hole in exactly the right spot, make the repair, and patch up the road, keeping disruption and cost to a minimum.

Continuous monitoring improves municipal operations

Medicine Hat was the first city in Canada to implement the EchoShore DX solution, which proved its worth almost immediately. During the pilot stage of the deployment, 100 nodes were installed on some of the city’s oldest mains. Within a month, Graham’s team had identified and fixed several small holes that had likely been leaking for years.

“It’s impossible to say for sure how long they’d been leaking and how much water we lost,” says Graham. “But it was probably several hundred thousand dollars every year.”

Since then, Graham and his team have deployed 362 nodes covering most of the city’s metal distribution pipes. All nodes are connected over Bell’s highly reliable wireless network, so the team gets notified immediately of any new leaks. Based on the urgency of a given leak, repairs can be completed promptly or scheduled for a suitable time. The crew that spent much of its time looking for leaks the old-fashioned way can now focus on more critical maintenance work, and the van they used has been freed up to become part of the City’s overall fleet.

What’s next

Graham is extremely pleased with the EchoShore DX solution from Bell and encourages all municipalities to consider upgrading their leak-detection technology. He has his eye on bringing the same level of innovation to managing the transmission lines that carry water between Medicine Hat’s multiple water reservoirs.

“I’m really thrilled with how this project has gone. I’m looking forward to exploring and innovating further with Bell to make things even better for the citizens of Medicine Hat.”