UMA receives an Award of Excellence from the Consulting Engineers of British Columbia (CEBC)

Burnaby, BC: March 13, 2008 – The Consulting Engineers of British Columbia (CEBC) presented UMA with an Award of Excellence in the Soft Engineering category at the CEBC Annual Awards for Engineering Excellence Gala held in Vancouver on Saturday March 8, 2008.

Sustainable Sewer Funding Model: Determining Sustainable Levels of Infrastructure Funding Based on Deterioration Models was the award-winning project, completed for the City of New Westminster, BC.

UMA developed an analytical technique and framework for modeling sewer deterioration and conducting sustainable funding analyses. The framework uses a combination of real sewer condition state data, GIS information, and real market value models for various sewer rehabilitation techniques. The model determines optimum rehabilitation and re-inspection funding ranges for various planning scenarios. UMA identified these for the 10 and 100-year planning periods for each sewer flow type in New Westminster. The resulting funding ranges were considerably less than those previously established through assessments based solely on system age and assumptions of service life, without the use of real sewer condition data.

This project provided the City with an innovative approach to long-term financial planning for linear sewer infrastructure based on a more precise deterioration analysis. The tools provide a more realistic view of funding requirements and enable managers to anticipate the need for large future expenditures.  They also help balance the need for adequate financing and resources while limiting unnecessarily high reserve funds.

"It was a great pleasure and proud moment for me to award the last Award for Excellence to UMA for their work with the City of New Westminster”, said Francois Morton, CEBC President and UMA’s Regional Vice President for the BC Region.