Waterford Township, Michigan Installs Longwatch

The Waterford Township DPW is responsible for providing essential services in the areas of water treatment, conveyance, wastewater collection, facilities management, cemetery operations, and bike path management to enhance Waterford’s quality of life.

The Waterford Township DPW is one of the most proactive water suppliers in the country. It has also been recognized on the international stage, having won awards for technology implementation.

Video Over Existing Communications Network

IVC’s Longwatch Surveillance System can utilize existing SCADA low-bandwidth communication networks to transmit video. Unlike stand-alone security systems that use closed-circuit or broadband networks for video transmission, Longwatch does not require the installation of a new communications network.

“We are also implementing a broadband wireless network,” said Terry Biederman, director of public works. “Unfortunately we have a line of sight problem at many of our remote sites. This situation presented a significant problem trying to install a broadband network system-wide. We have almost two hundred sites and about two-thirds have a line of sight issue. It’s not feasible to construct towers everywhere we needed one. The Longwatch system was the perfect solution to solve our problem,” explained Biederman.

Manpower Utilization and Video Event Clips Were Key to Longwatch Selection

Video surveillance is the best way to optimize the level of security at remote sites such as well fields, pumping stations, reservoirs, and storage tanks. The use of video as a security tool is only effective if the video is being actively monitored. The manpower requirement is of particular concern to water suppliers as most staff members are actively involved with operating and maintaining the water supply system. In most water supply operations there is rarely time available to sit and monitor a stream of video. Longwatch addresses this issue by utilizing intrusion detection and process alarms to alert the operator to view short, 30 seconds or less, video clips that can be delivered to a utilities HMI system, or even dispatched to a cell phone.

“Technology saves manpower, reduces risk and allows for more efficient and cost effective operations. Longwatch will expand and improve service to our community in all of these areas. One area of improvement in particular will be to have alarm event video emailed to me and other on-call staff to review and determine the appropriate response,” voiced Biederman.

Security of Water Supply a Priority

Securing our nation’s water supply was a concern long before 9/11. Many communities have had to interrupt and even re- sort to turning off their systems for days due to an unwanted intrusion. Rather than face the uncertainty of having to take drastic measures to calm public concerns, many communities utilize video surveillance to determine if an event places their community in imminent danger or is just another false alarm.

“We have occasional problems with vandalism. Our primary concern is providing our community with safe drinking water. We have every intention of maintaining the confidence our users have in us. We didn’t want to wait until we had an event to take action. With video surveillance we added an additional level of security to our operation,” described Biederman.