Drinking water and Sanitation

We provide drinking water and wastewater infrastructure characterization and assessment services to assist our clients in their asset reviews.

Our teams have multiple skills enabling complete assessments, master plans, permanent assessment, upstream assessment on the presence of micropollutants, Water Safety Management Plans:

• Field visits by qualified personnel
• Implementation of in situ measurements (flow rate, pressure, pollution, etc.)
• Date analysis and consolidation of operating data
• Modeling of current and future situations
• Risk management of hazardous substances, such a vinyl chloride monomers and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or overflow
• Identification of developments required and proposal of quantified and ranked technical solutions

Asset management is an important stake. It provides responses to three areas:

• Regulatory: local and national regulatory requirements
• Technical: service improvement (maintain performance rates, limit infiltration/inflow of clear water, etc.)
• Risks: hazardous substances overflow, etc.

We can provide a methodology for managing assets by analyzing the information available about the asset and on its GIS. We also have software developed by our own engineers that assist in organizing, structuring and updating information and enable customized technical and economical strategies to be defined.

Technical, regulatory and urban planning changes force the contracting authority to build or rehabilitate their drinking water plants, networks and reservoirs, wastewater mains, discharge stations and wastewater treatment plants. This also covers the instrumentation of these for self-monitoring purposes.

We provide our clients with full project owner assistance and project supervision services.

• Facility design, definition and sizing of works
• Assistance in procurement
• Works follow-up and acceptance

The   physical, chemical and microbiological characteristics of groundwater or surface water can significantly vary: choosing a treatment process must therefore be examined on a case by case basis using a maximum of analytical data.

We provide advice to our clients on the adjustments that need to be made to their plants according to the changes in regulations.

Furthermore, for European countries, the new European Directive that is currently being finalized will be accompanied by new parameters that will need to be managed by 2022: AHA, bisphenol A, chlorate, PFAS, uranium and the lowering of values for some existing parameters such as chromium and lead.

Wastewater treatment plants can also play a role in the circular economy:

• Renewable energy production: biomethane, heat recovery, etc.
• Reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation or for industrial, environmental purposes or communal public services.
• Treating micropollutants
• Recovery of nutrients: phosphorus, nitrogen

These issues must now be included in the operations of new treatment plants that are constructed or in the refurbishment/upgrading programs of existing plants.

Treated water reservoirs are key works in drinking water distribution operations.

In regards to public aid for development in particular, we assist our clients all over the world with all phases of a drinking water project, by responding to the usual lender standards.

For mature infrastructures we provide advice on planned refurbishment operations. We start by an audit/assessment phase focusing on all the following fields: civil engineering, hydraulic equipment, safety and lockout equipment, aeration systems. We then define the most suitable solutions. Restrictions in operations and maintaining continuity are incorporated at the design phase in order to anticipate any risks to disruption in supply.