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St. Charles approves $330,000 for technology improvements at water facilities

In a continued effort to improve aging infrastructure, St. Charles officials approved a $330,000 contract to upgrade the technology at the city's water, wastewater and pump facilities.

The St. Charles aldermen voted unanimously at Monday's Government Services Committee meeting to commit to the next phase of a multiyear project from Concentric Integration to improve the operations of the city's continuous automated operation, also known as the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.

Because the current system is not integrated with the city's online network, has limited data acquisition ability and lacks security constraints, it needs to be replaced.

"It's basically the IT system that runs the water and wastewater system when we're not manning the facility," said Tim Wilson, the environmental services manager in the city's public works department. "It pushes on the alarms, turns the pumps on and off. It's basically a large platform with a lot of hardware, software and programming."

The first phase of the project started in 2018 as Concentric updated software and upgraded lift stations. The next phase will involve management and subcontractor coordination in addition to more technological improvements and remote site installation.

Concentric also will test the new systems and configure the SCADA network with the city's network.

"Concentric has been working with us and continually upgraded our SCADA system over the last three years," Wilson said. "We probably have at least two more phases left to completely upgrade."

Also at Monday's Government Services Committee meeting, the city's aldermen approved a $115,000 contract with Engineering Enterprises Inc. to review the sewer flow monitoring data gathered in the fall and spring to determine which areas need further investigation.

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