AbWARN.org

About AbWARN

August 9th, 2007 by Administrator

Mission:

The mission of the Alberta Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network is to support and promote a province-wide emergency preparedness, disaster response, and mutual assistance program for public and private water and wastewater utilities.

Organization:

Leadership Team members from public and private water and wastewater utilities will met in September 2007. In the future each member of AbWARN that chooses to sign the Mutual Aid Agreement will provide an updated list of emergency contacts and a list relevant to the size and operation of their utility that references resources available in the event of crisis or disaster.

Purpose:

AbWARN provides member utilities with –

A mutual assistance agreement and process for sharing emergency resources among members.
The resources to respond and recover more quickly from a disaster.
A forum for developing and maintaining emergency contacts and relationships.
New ideas from lessons learned from disasters.

Funding:

There is no cost to join AbWARN, it is supported by volunteers from members across the country including:

The City of Calgary
Town of Banff
EPCOR Utilities
Alberta Emergency Management Agency
Canadian Water and Wastewater Association
Halifax Regional Water District
City of Saskatoon
City of Yellowknife
Town of Crossfield
Town of Canmore

Participation:

The AbWARN Mutual Assistance Agreement is available to all public and private water utilities in Canada

Water and Wastewater - Maintaining Critical Infrastructure During Disaster or Emergency

Most Canadians depend on provincially regulated municipal water and wastewater facilities for their household water supplies and waste removal. From a federal perspective, water and wastewater facilities are critical infrastructure and their potential for failure as a consequence of any hazard has emergency preparedness implications. The main concern is to assure the continuation of a sufficient supply of water of suitable quality to meet the needs of Canadians in the face of threats from natural hazards, accidents, and malicious attack. How long could a high population density urban core function without working toilets? The consequences of a city enduring days or weeks without water for sewage disposal or relying on bottled water illustrates how critical a good water supply is and how dependent all other types of infrastructure are on basic water services.

Four components in the design of a public water supply system pertain to the safety and security of drinking water. They are:

Raw water supply, including associated pipelines
Treatment systems
Distribution systems
Operation and control systems

While water treatment plant failures can lead to serious consequences, the main policy concern is to ensure that there is no public loss of confidence in municipal water systems. Under all but the most extreme circumstances, the responsibility for maintaining that confidence remains with the municipality, the province, and to a certain extent, Health Canada.

Public Safety Canada may have a role in the event of catastrophic breakdowns. Of potential concern are breakdowns from widespread contamination, the consequences from which requires a federal government-wide response; from natural hazards such as floods and earthquakes; and from human actions, including accidents and malicious attacks that disrupt delivery of water. Also of concern are breakdowns in interdependent systems, such as energy supplies that threaten operation of the systems, or transportation failure that may limit supply of treatment chemicals.

Our national critical infrastructure is made up of ten sectors:

Energy and utilities (e.g. electrical power, natural gas, oil production and transmission systems)
Communications and information technology (e.g. telecommunications, broadcasting systems, software, hardware and networks including the Internet)
Finance (e.g. banking, securities and investment)
Health care (e.g. hospitals, health care and blood supply facilities, laboratories and pharmaceuticals)
Food (e.g. safety, distribution, agriculture and food industry)
Water (e.g. drinking water and wastewater management)
Transportation (e.g. air, rail, marine and surface)
Safety (e.g. chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear safety, hazardous materials, search and rescue, emergency services and dams)
Government (e.g. services, facilities, information networks, assets and key national sites and monuments)
Manufacturing (e.g. defence industrial base, chemical industry)