World Water Day – Innovations that make a difference
Water is a vital and essential resource that we rely heavily on in our daily lives, but often take for granted. Today on World Water Day, we’re sharing innovative solutions driven by the brilliant minds of our workforce to ensure we are leaving our environment and the communities where we live and work, better than we found it. World Water Day is an annual United Nations observance day to highlight the importance of fresh water.
Water Movement
Turning on the tap to pour yourself a fresh glass of water is something many of us take for granted. But did you know that there are currently 29 Indigenous communities in Canada who still have to boil water to have clean and safe drinking water?
While volunteering with Engineers Without Borders, Oil Pipestream employee Bita Malekian began touring wastewater treatment plants and saw aging infrastructure and other issues, resulting in failed water treatment processes and boil water advisories. Seeing the devastating impact this has on Indigenous communities, Bita founded Water Movement. Driven by the belief that everyone has the right to access clean drinking water, Water Movement’s mission is to tackle barriers to clean water by providing an online interactive space where Indigenous water operators can connect, ask questions, share lessons learned and access a free video learning library.
Since its inception in January 2021, there are currently more than 4,200 active users and Water Movement – led by an all-Indigenous board of directors – is making a difference when it comes to national and local impact. We are so excited to celebrate Bita’s recent achievements as a result of her work as founder of Water Movement. Bita was named one of the 2021 Young Women in Energy (YWE) Award Winners and recognized as one of Alberta’s most ethical entrepreneurs by Ethical Entrepreneur Magazine.
Groundwater Remediation Technology
A friendship that stemmed from two former university colleagues turned into a journey to provide potable water for more than 500 children in a Haitian orphanage from an existing technology at a Oil Pipestream Compressor Station.
Darcy Bye, an Environmental Specialist at Oil Pipestream, and Dr. Roger Saint-Fort, an Environmental Chemist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada teamed up to make that happen.
The idea came to Darcy when working in the field at the Beiseker Compressor Station where the original on-site area, which has since been removed, captured fluids, discharges and water from the compressor station. Darcy proposed the development and field trial of the groundwater technology to Oil Pipestream’s Technology and Innovation Management office (TIMO). After two years of lab tests and three years of field tests, this sustainable technology successfully remediated groundwater and was ready to be put into action in Haiti providing 5,000 litres of potable water.
Roger has bigger plans for this widely successful technology with hopes for usage in North America and other developing countries and aspires to bring this technology to the World Health Organization.