The London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) is delighted with today’s announcement of $19,580,000 in FedDev funding, made by the Honourable Gary Goodyear, to help establish clean water technologies through the Southern Ontario Water Consortium (SOWC).
"One of the most important issues for communities around the world is access to clean drinking water and the safe treatment of wastewater," said Minister Goodyear.
“London has significant innovation and industry in water treatment,” states Peter White, President and CEO of the LEDC. “Companies such as Trojan Technologies have been leading the global industry and it’s time we officially mark London’s leadership in this industry.”
"As a result of today’s announcement the world will be looking to London for solutions and innovations in water technology.Safe, clean drinking water and remedial technologies will be researched, developed and marketed from our city.This is an exciting day for all the partners and London is proud to be an integral part of this project,” said Mayor Fontana.“London has a solid global reputation in the field of water technology research and innovation and this project will only serve to heighten our profile."
The International Water Centre of Excellence (IWCE) to be established in London is a partnership of The City of London, the University of Western Ontario, LEDC and private sector partners Trojan Technologies and Purifics. The IWCE will be London’s node in the SOWC.The FedDev Ontario contribution will go toward the purchase and installation of equipment related to setting up the water system components and assist in the refurbishment and preparation of onsite testing facilities at London’s Greenway Pollution Control Plant.Preliminary conceptual design work on a possible layout or testing and laboratory space is currently underway.This will facilitate the City’s ongoing support to ‘in field’ application and development of new technology.
The SOWC responds to private sector needs for access to actual water environments on a watershed level, and leading edge research expertise to advance water-related technologies and helps bring them to the marketplace.It is anticipated that this project will lead to the creation of many high quality jobs, resulting from the expansion of current water companies, the creation of new companies, the attraction of companies from outside the region, and the expansion of public sector jobs in the water industry.
"The federal government's commitment to invest in the Southern Ontario Water Consortium will make our region world-class in clean water technology," said Ed Holder, Member of Parliament for London West."This is great news for London and all of southern Ontario.It means jobs and the attraction of research and capital into our area."
Background
- The Southern Ontario Water Consortium involves more than 70 companies, five municipalities and eight universities.The consortium includes all the participants in the project together with many additional private sector potential users and testers of the platform that will be developed through the project.
- Within the consortium, the eight universities and IBM propose a project to develop and build over the next three years a $40M integrated platform for the development of new water technologies in southern Ontario.Following the project, the platform will be operated by the consortium to enable southern Ontario companies to develop, test, and demonstrate new water technologies for local, national, and global markets.The platform will ensure that southern Ontario companies are able to effectively compete in those markets and able to retain development activities in the province.
- The key to the platform is the integration of all elements of water management into a single platform enabled by a sophisticated data generation, processing, and management environment.No such platform yet exists anywhere in the world.As a result, water R & D tends to be siloed and fragmented.The proposed platform is comprised of four complementary elements:
- Drinking and waste water technologies that enable more effective use and reuse of water as well as eliminate or substantially reduce the impact on both quantity and quality of water of human use. The platform includes facilities to test nascent solutions under development as well as facilities that to enable testing and demonstration of technologies working at full municipal scale.
- Contaminated ground water and soil remediation technologies that restore sites that constitute a threat to water purity and, therefore, use.
- New sensor technologies to make watersheds, including both streams and ground water more intelligent, instrumented, and integrated and thus ultimately even more valuable to the activity noted in 1 above.
- The development of new software, middleware, and analysis techniques to make optimal use of the data generated in an integrated, instrumented, and intelligent watershed.
- As London City Council and the London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) consider vehicles for economic growth, Council has earmarked $3.8M to support the facility, now referred to as the International Water Centre of Excellence (IWCE).The Southern Ontario Water Consortium with the London ‘node’ focused on the efforts related to the IWCE.
- The City continues to work with LEDC to promote and support the City of London in assisting local innovators and manufacturers of water related technologies with their testing and demonstration needs.
- The funding is provided under FedDev Ontario's Technology Development Program, designed to encourage the public and private sectors to collaborate on the development of large-scale, advanced technologies that will result in new market opportunities for southern Ontario.
For more information, contact:
Kadie Ward
Director, Marketing and Communications
The London Economic Development Corporation
office: 519-661-1883
mobile: 226-688-6452
