Water control devices bring flood of savings

David Parker, Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, May 09, 2008

The amount of water we use is an important issue with people concerned about our environment. In that vein, Tonko Realty Advisors is taking a significant step in cutting down its consumption by contracting Calgary-based ExactET to manage its water needs.

Senior vice-president Scott Sharples is working with ExactET chief operating officer Darren Kovacs to employ technology using accurate real-time weather data to maintain the optimum soil moisture balance and avoid over-watering. Tonko has a local industrial portfolio of 26 buildings totalling 3.5 million square feet.

The technology has already proven to be a huge success in saving water, money and time for many Calgary clients.

Our city has a number of micro-climates from which Kovacs gathers data -- a network of six local weather stations that collect rainfall, temperature, wind, solar radiation and humidity information. The information is collected automatically by ExactET's server, analyzed and broadcast wirelessly every hour to a Rain Bird ET Manager, which calculates site-specific information to determine how much moisture has left the land and how much needs to be replaced.

Each client's site has an irrigation controller that turns on water only when the moisture balance reaches user-set levels.

Much of the landscaping around the city is watered on a set timer basis. If it has been fixed on a schedule of Monday, Wednesday, Friday, then that's when sprinklers turn on -- even if it's raining hard.

ExactET was launched in 2006 and Southcentre was one of its first clients. Documented water savings for the shopping centre show in two years, it reduced its water consumption by nearly nine million litres at a cost savings of more than $12,000 based on city irrigation water meter rates.

Shaw Cable Systems cut its consumption by more than six million litres in its first two years using the technology and smaller buildings also are enjoying huge savings. In 2006-07, Beattie Homes' head office reduced its water costs by $2,418 and, in one year, St. Mary's Cathedral has cut the amount of water for its landscaping by 43 per cent.

Kovacs says his units are now in 25 cities across Canada and businesses are eagerly awaiting to make use of his next station, which will be online next week in Kelowna, B.C. It's a smart way to irrigate and, as water rates increase, the savings on summer bills can be significant, as well as money saved by reducing maintenance and labour costs.

Wayne Benz joined Centron Construction in 1987 as estimator and project manager, rising to the position of executive vice-president of the Centron Group of Companies.

Today, Centron has $3.7 billion on the books and Benz has been appointed to the position of president of construction for the entire group. He is responsible for projects in various stages of development, including a $1.2-billion housing project in Fort McMurray, the Harris Homburg Centre at the former Calgary post office site, and several high-end Calgary condominium projects as well as the construction of a number of suburban office/industrial parks.

SAIT Polytechnic has been given the first cash awards from its new Applied Research Fund, which was created to provide support for industry-relevant research.

The Industrial Water and Wastewater Pre-Treatment project was awarded $50,000 to purchase equipment. The project seeks to help eliminate water contaminants and prevent them from entering advanced water treatment systems. Project partners are Volker-Stevin Contracting and the National Research Council.

The second $50,000 was granted to the Quantum Key Distribution project to cover salaries for student researchers. That project provides secure data transmission over unsecure public systems such as the Internet. The University of Calgary and General Dynamics Canada are partners, while SAIT's component is to develop a fibre-optic polarization control method.

Just for the fun of it, local farmers are letting Big Rock Brewery clothe hay bales with Grasshopper and Traditional wrappers to look like 12-foot beer cans along the north-south highways into Calgary. Vice-president Jim Button says the farmers appreciate the fact the brewery uses only local barley and he's getting more calls to help promote his beer.

The Van Horne Institute has teamed up with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce to bring Don Krusel, president and CEO of the Prince Rupert Port Authority, to town.

He will speak about his port at a luncheon in the chamber May 13.

The final event in this year's Alberta College of Art & Design's excellent Stirring Culture lecture series will take place at the Jack Singer Concert Hall on May 12.

Launched in 2006 to explore the relationship between the creative process and the development of culture and community, Stirring Culture 2: A Time to Act focuses on the premise that it is time to take decisive action about how we embrace and promote cultural development in our city, our province and our country.

On stage will be Richard Florida, bestselling author and one of the world's leading intellectuals on economic competitiveness, demographic trends and cultural innovation.

David Parker appears Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at 830-4622 or e-mail info@davidparker.ca.