Minneapolis Public Works

BACKGROUND

The Minneapolis Public Works Department needed to modernize the sanitary sewer system to meet the goals that the city government strived for: being a safe and livable city, protecting the environment, eliminating disparities between residents and being a city that works and connects with its residents.

The city had nine sanitary lift stations and twenty-three storm sewer pump stations spread throughout the city. None of the stations had remote monitoring capabilities and the Public Works department wanted to add this capability to improve their data analytics and to enhance their ability to more effectively manage both storm sewers and sanitary sewers.

LOCATION

Minneapolis the largest city in Minnesota with a population of over 425,000 and growing. There are over 150,000 buildings, residential and commercial combined, and all need access to the city water and sewer system. The city government is committed to operating in an environmentally friendly way and wants to ensure that sewer system does not adversely impact the environment.

SCOPE

PRIMEX was chosen as the prime contractor to retrofit the existing the stations by adding remote monitoring capabilities. The mandate was to develop and install a complete SCADA system that included the addition of digital cell routers on the Verizon network to improve monitoring. The upgraded system also incorporated a local computer memory at each site, ensuring that if for any reason the cell connection was down, the data would not be lost.

The city provided the hardware and infrastructure for the new SCADA software package. The city also decided on using Wonderware and PRIMEX was charged with completing the programming. This became a very time-consuming process as the city of Minneapolis’ IT department was deeply involved and went to great lengths to protect the city’s data security. This necessitated an ongoing coordination effort between PRIMEX, Verizon and the IT department as we had minimal access to the system due to the security concerns.

PRIMEX was also tasked with overall system documentation which included a comprehensive description of operation along with controller programming.

SPECIAL FEATURES

The local Wonderware Edge graphical operator interface (OIT) has native capabilities to both store and forward all data. When the Verizon communications are lost, the local OIT logs data to memory. Upon restoration of cellular communications, all of the historical information is backfilled into the historian so that there are no blackouts in data. This redundancy feature is the first of its kind and was successfully implemented for the city.

DETAILS

OWNER/CLIENT
City Minneapolis, Public Works
William Shutte
(612) 673-3606

PROJECT START – END
November 2016 – December 2019

PROJECT COST
$418,000

KEY PERSONNEL
Leslie Satrum, Sean Oberg,
William Gustafson, William Shutte

SERVICES PROVIDED:

  • Prime Contractor
  • Project Management
  • Engineering
  • Programming of SCADA servers including graphics and historian
  • Network configuration of hardware and Verizon APN
  • Operator Training
  • Commissioning