With the southern US scrambling to manage its quickly depleting water resources, more and more emphasis is being placed on more efficient water treatment and conservation. Aging buried infrastructure, while not completely over looked, is taking a back seat to the improvements and expansions of treatment facilities. In the meantime, every day we hear news of our water distribution network suffering another failure and countless gallons of treated, potable water being lost. The reason why water main replacement is not the priority for managing the looming water crisis is that digging up these 50+ year old pipes is both disruptive and expensive.

The good news is that innovative trenchless technologies can offer huge convenience and cost benefits over replacing our buried pipes. Most trenchless solutions require a clean and prepared pipe to host one of a variety of pipe renewal or life extension methods. Unfortunately, the cleaning of these deteriorated cast and ductile iron pipes require huge amounts of water to clean and flush out debris. These wet cleaning methods are not ideal when you consider that experts are predicting the shortage of water is only going to get worse.

Of added importance, areas in drought conditions are more susceptible to fires. Older, tuberculated water mains restrict the flow of water which can make the difference between saving a structure from fire or not. The more of the distribution system that has been cleaned and rehabilitated will ensure adequate water supply to all areas where it is needed most.

For these reasons, Evanco Environmental will be offering pipe cleaning and renewal services using the Tomahawk System^TM within the USA starting in 2015. The patented and patent-pending Tomahawk technology requires NO WATER to clean congested pipes. By using the vacuum system of a standard vac truck, Tomahawk uses dry abrasive materials to clean old pipe systems in compliance with SSPC-SP/Nace No. 3, Commercial Blast Cleaning. The level of cleaning is not offered by any other mainstream methods and helps ensure excellent bond for various pipe rehabilitation technologies. The dry process also reduces waste generation by up to 98% while reducing downtime required for dispose of waste generated during the cleaning process.

“We don’t want to spend any money prematurely.  Come up with a program that would allow us to spend only when we need to spend, and do so wisely”.

This was a challenge recently posed by a valued customer who wanted to re-examine the strategic use of capital and operating cash resources.  Evanco was asked to provide innovative ideas for pushing the life cycle curve for their conveyance assets, providing a “just in time” repair approach.

The shift from expensive condition assessment and rehabilitation programs to baseline asset studies coupled with intelligent, non-destructive, 24/7 monitoring programs allowed us to stretch the customer’s budget dollar more than ever before.  A network of remote sensors can now collect, report and analyze data round-the-clock, leaving our customer with the peace of mind needed to get on with their core duties – plant production, safety, and customer satisfaction.

Evanco is pioneering remote sensor installations on aging critical pipelines, coupled with the data analysis, collection, and decisions our industrial customers need.  We are delivering Reliability-Centered Maintenance for a 21st Century bottom line.  Let us show you what we can do “just in time”.