The Best Enhancements Come from Customers |
Mission Communications is always looking to provide useful information in 123SCADA, and our customers in the water and wastewater industries have the best ideas. In fact, many of the most useful enhancements started as feedback comments.
A customer wanted to be notified if any of their alarm events did not have a destination set, to avoid any event getting missed. We added a Missing Notification Destinations section to the Management Report for any customer that has that issue.
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With recent 3G sunsets, a customer made a request to be provided a heads–up message of other known hardware issues. In that vein we added another section to the Management Report called Legacy Devices End of Life. Currently, if you have any RTUs with the Option Board — Analog Input and Pulse accessory that is approaching end–of–life, the report will tell you so you can upgrade your MyDro and add the Safe Module Plus (SMP). Contact sales@123mc.com to arrange your upgrade.
Another customer wanted to simply add the total runtimes for each of their sites. So in addition to the system and individual pump totals that these reports already had, now every site includes its own subtotal.
If you have a suggestion for a new feature that would help you, or even a change to an existing feature, send a message to our Engineering team by clicking Start Menu > Help > Send Feedback.
For more information on recent changes to 123SCADA, consult our system revision log and join our live weekly webinars.
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Addison, IL
September 28 – September 29
Saint John, NB
October 2 – October 5
Green Bay, WI
October 4 – October 7
Post Falls, ID
October 5 – October 6
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New Orleans, LA
October 10 – October 12
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Clarenville, NL
October 12 – October 14
Trois-Rivières, QC
November 1 – November 2
Kearney, NE
November 2 – November 4
Columbia, MO
November 3 – November 3
Roseburg, OR
November 15 – November 17
All trade show information is subject to change. Please confirm dates and schedules with the individual trade shows.
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Web Portal II—Advanced Features, Reporting, Supergraph, Volumetric Flow
Survey of Features
Web Portal I—Unit Setup Options, Notification Setup Options, Alarm Groups, Website Tools
Web Portal II—Advanced Features, Reporting, Supergraph, Volumetric Flow
Survey of Features
Web Portal I—Unit Setup Options, Notification Setup Options, Alarm Groups, Website Tools
Special Topics—Digital Interconnect, Tank and Well, OPC, and More
Survey of Features
Hardware and Instrumentation
Web Portal I—Unit Setup Options, Notification Setup Options, Alarm Groups, Website Tools
Certificates are available for any webinar attended, by request.
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Altitude Adjustment: Mission Helps Gorgoza Mutual Water Avoid PRV Failures |
“We were just getting pounded with these pressure leaks and there are not many options for a remote system with its own power.” Cole Sorenson knows the water pressure challenges in the mountainous landscapes of Utah. He is the Water Operator in charge of operation and maintenance for Gorgoza Mutual Water, who supplies clean water to over 1,600 locations. Located north and east of Salt Lake City, Gorgoza’s customers are spread over 1,000 feet of elevation, from the luxury mountain homes to lower–level areas near a busy interstate highway. “I’m basically in charge of keeping all of the water inside the pipes.” |
Supplying potable water to that kind of variety of altitudes from 10 wells and a natural flowing spring means constantly boosting water to reach high points, and reducing water pressure using pressure reducing valves (PRVs) for the lower neighborhoods. “We face challenges of keeping pressure tolerable to our customers at the lower elevations and that’s probably our biggest issue, along with our pipes being old, mostly put in during the 70s and 80s. The elevation, pressure, and pipe don’t always work well together.”
There was very little Sorenson and his team could do before a pressure–related leak happened. “It was frustrating,” Soreneson continues, “leaks would come in spurts and they were all at in-road locations.” He knew where the pressure issues were, but the locations he needed to help with were neither powered nor connected to their old monitoring system. Even constant, physical checking of a PRV doesn’t always avoid leaks. “You can check on a PRV and it will be fine but then when the overnight pressures start to rise, sprinkler systems turn on, and households use more water, it can change quickly.”
Gorgoza Mutual Water replaced their private radio telemetry monitoring system with Mission devices years before they saw a potential solution to the pattern of pressure–related leaks. Sorenson remembers their old system. “The radio system had line–of–site issues with our terrain, and even radio frequency interference from the nearby highway. We were always getting communication failure alarms with that system and sending people to locations when there wasn’t even a problem. We did some research, found Mission Communications, and went from there.” They gradually replaced all of their existing monitoring with Mission.
This was when Sorenson became curious about a possible solution to his ongoing PRV issues. “We found out about the Manhole Monitor Plus, which is the only monitoring device I could find that can be used without external power.” The Manhole Monitor Plus uses cellular connection to communicate, and runs on its own battery for power for about five years. That was perfect for Gorgoza’s PRV locations, so he wondered if it could be configured to help him avoid pipes from bursting due to too much pressure. “I asked Mat Player (with Delco Western, local Mission distributor) if it could help.”
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Player was integral in the migration of Mission devices for Gorgoza Mutual Water and was familiar with Sorenson’s concerns. “Those PRVs are keeping all of those low–level homes and neighborhoods from getting overwhelmed with high pressures. You can end up with a lot of damage when they fail.” He came up with an idea. Instead of using one of the Manhole Monitor Plus digital inputs for a float, he tried connecting it to a digital pressure sensor. “Cole (Sorenson) could set what pressure he wanted to trigger an alarm.”
Sorenson picked the areas that frequently had PRV performance failures. “We put them in three of our locations that have been recently prone to leaks. The pipes are only rated for certain amounts of pressure and they especially don’t like inconsistent pressure.” Based on the elevations, each one was set to a different threshold “It would be 150 pounds per square inch (PSI) in one spot and a different setting in another.” Player’s idea worked—when the pressure sensor detected a PSI reading above the set limit, the Manhole Monitor Plus circuit would be opened and a Mission alarm would be sent to the on–duty Gorgoza Mutual Water technician, informing of the location and that it’s a PRV issue.
Now whenever one of these PRVs fail to prevent high pressures downstream like they should, an alarm goes out. “I have three guys set up with Mission alarms so when it happens it goes right down the list and we can go take care of it. We still have to figure out what’s going on—whether it’s a pilot system, debris, or the PRV itself. But we can do what we need to do to avoid those leaks and avoid that prolonged hammering.”
Getting these PRV alarms is paying off, according to Sorenson. “Each alarm is money saved for us. By the time we fix a leak, pay the guys, replace any parts and asphalt, you’re looking at thousands and thousands of dollars saved. Each alarm is a leak avoided.”
For more information on how Mission Communications can help avoid PRV failures, contact sales@123mc.com.
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Mission Communications Earns Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) Type 1 Certification |
Risk3Sixty is an Atlanta–based CPA firm that audits Service and Organization Control (SOC) metrics on behalf of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). They were contracted by Mission Communications to apply these controls to the water and wastewater industries and administer an audit. This month Mission Communications received their final report, earning SOC 2 Type 1 certification. This achievement validates the commitment Mission Communications has made to ensure that their systems and organization operate at a high level of financial and security integrity to service our industry. These rigorous assessments provided pathways to detect and remediate security flaws, validate disaster recovery procedures, and ensure overall business continuity in the event of a catastrophe.
Mission Communications spent considerable resources confirming and adapting their business processes, formalizing procedures, and hardening their security. This certification by an outside firm attests Mission Communications policies and procedures align with the industry’s best practices, and demonstrates their commitment to securing customers’ data to the highest standards.
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This rigorous certification has been achieved by only a few water and wastewater service providers. Any cloud–based provider handling customer data as part of their business should be held to the highest standards. Municipalities trusting companies with water and wastewater data and control need to know that their vendors are operating under the strictest and most transparent guidelines. SOC 2 holds companies accountable to prove their attributes in the five Trust Services Criteria (TSC):
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Security — information access, both physical and digital
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Availability — consistent information, proper service
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Processing Integrity — completeness, validity, and accuracy
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Confidentiality — trade information and intellectual property
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Privacy — personal information collection, use, and destruction
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The Mission Communications Information Technology and Security team collaborated with Risk3Sixty on a plan that identified each control that had to be made. Once this was completed, the Mission IT and Engineering team was required to “rethink'' and “re-tool” as they went through each control one by one. Walter Powell is the Information Technology manager at Mission and gives examples. “Risk3Sixty scrutinized every piece of our business, from new employee onboarding through multi-factor authentication, to make sure policies and procedures were documented, and then they verified each one.” Powell continues, “They ran repeated vulnerability scans. On multiple occasions several trained cybersecurity consultants attempted to uncover any possible security issues.”
Del Champion, Mission Customer Success Manager, explains how sophisticated the tests went. “It wasn’t the same test each time. Sometimes they would try to trick employees to fall for email phishing, other times we would give them a certain low level of access, and they were trying to get a higher level of access, which could have been another major liability. Even tricks like trying to use credentials of former employees were attempted.”
Champion continues, “The reviews went from every place we store information, to VPN settings, to even how we restrict physical areas.” Every employee was trained and is tasked with remaining compliant in their processes, even the way they log into their computers. “And not only us, but we had to prove that our vendors and partners were compliant.” Even the cleaning crew’s access is closely inspected.
In the 1990s, the Statement of Accounting Standards (SAS) No. 70 was the gold–standard certification for providers, but its sole focus was on accounting practices. As the technology market grew, so did risks for data vulnerabilities and the need to address them. Municipalities and governments rely on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and remote monitoring providers more and more. That is ultimately who will benefit from firms like Mission Communications taking SOC 2 seriously. Powell emphasizes “It’s one thing to claim that your system is secure, it’s another thing entirely to pass a SOC 2 inspection conducted by an outside auditor. If you can’t then your system isn’t really secure.”
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“Everything we do now is forensically trackable,” says Champion. “Any change to our system creates a trail that can be audited going forward.” This ensures that all of the controls that have been established and improved will stick, and customers can be certain that Mission conducts their business as responsibly and securely as possible.
So what’s next for Mission Communications, now that the SOC 2 Type 1 certification has been granted? Well, keeping it, says Powell, and that’s where Type 2 comes in. “Type 2 is remaining vigilant in all of these changes we made. It’s like we improved ourselves and now we’ll go into continuing scrutiny to ensure that we are living up to these improvements.”
Risk3Sixty will now perform annual reassessments on Mission Communications. “From now on that will happen every year,” Champion announces. “And throughout the year we’ll get updated scans.” While Mission Communications has reason to celebrate, the work is really just beginning.
If you have any questions regarding Mission Communications and their SOC 2 Type 1 certification, contact security@123mc.com. |
The Water Tower Looks to Fill Many of the Industry’s Rising Needs |
The essential field of water and wastewater gained a new ally in 2019 with the establishment of The Water Tower, a non–profit organization that has big plans to improve the industry from as many angles as possible. To accomplish this they plan to bring together academic, public, and private innovators to help address the diminishing water–related trade workforce, and supplying space and events to support those efforts. In the spring of 2022, the 55,000 square–foot facility in Buford, Georgia officially opened its campus, designed and dedicated to foster the stewardship and preservation of the resource of water. |
Kristan VandenHeuvel is the Director of Applied Research and Engagement and explains how supporting the workforce fits into The Water Tower’s plans. “The overall mission is to be a hub and a convener of resources for water utilities across Georgia and the country. Supporting the workforce is obviously a huge part of that.” Staffed with industry veterans like VandenHeuvel, who relocated from Alexandria, Virginia, The Water Tower looks to lead efforts to maintain a robust and thriving workforce by improving the visibility of the essential water–related trades and providing needed training and recruiting support.
The Water Tower researched and compiled statistics on the industry’s current workforce. VandenHeuvel explains, “looking at the utility staff, the maintenance staff, the lab staff, there are some big gaps that need to be filled. We estimate that up to 50% of the utility operation personnel are nearing retirement age, and could be lost in the next five years. The need for staff is obviously there. The opportunities are obviously there–and often these trade positions that are valuable, with opportunities for growth, are being forgotten.”
So how is The Water Tower looking to address this oncoming trade gap wave? “Outreach and recruitment,” continues VandenHeuvel. “Working with high schools, recruiting the next generation of water workers, and selling them on the opportunities in the water industries that have endless entry points—whether it’s after high school, or with a degree, or even a Ph.D—there are so many opportunities in this industry.”
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The Water Tower can help with all types of training too. Their facility contains indoor Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) panels and controls, as well as outdoor demonstration equipment that uses real water data from Gwinnett County. The F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center, located adjacent to The Water Tower, provides direct water access. The Water Tower provides four– and eight–month training programs and helps prepare trainees for certifications, even for students from out of state. They also match aspiring workers with municipalities that are looking to hire.
The Georgia Water and Wastewater Institute (GWWI) in Carrollton is currently using the space for their 40–hour training, taking advantage of their unique location and resources. “At our field training center we have a big dirt yard with a pavilion and heavy equipment that our trainees can practice on to simulate the situations in the field. We also offer many supplemental training opportunities to the standard course. We offer online training as well and help with placement. There are utilities that have reached out to us that have needs and we work to place those trainees to communities that need them.”
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The Water Tower is also researching the best ways to connect with the new generation. VandenHeuvel explains further, “We’re performing research surveys with high school students, college students, and young adults to learn what is important to them in a career and what their views are of the water industry. Typical high school curriculums don’t really talk about water jobs, especially for municipal systems.”
But it’s not just a fancy training center and academic research facility. The innovation that The Water Tower is working to foster includes connecting all types of water players who are looking to break new ground. They have permanent and temporary office space available, shared environments, and even common spaces to serve as a hub, with the purpose of providing collaborative opportunities. VandenHeuvel revealed just a taste: “We’ve had ‘lunch–and–learn’ activities among our tenants and some of them have even teamed–up on grant proposals.”
The Water Tower is sponsoring their own events and making their substantial facilities available for others to use as well. The second annual Watering Hole Golf Tournament is an event they plan to use to both draw attention to their resources and promote water collaboration. On October 27th, companies, water professionals, and members of the community will enjoy a beautiful day of fun and networking at the Lanier Islands Legacy Golf Course. The only water–topic that should be avoided that day is the 58 square–mile water hazard of Lake Lanier itself. If interested, there is still time to sponsor or participate.
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