Confederation Trail pathway for new water utility communications

Lengths of orange tube and grey boxes stacked up along Confederation Trail in Charlottetown will soon be buried as part of improving the communications infrastructure of the water utility.

The boxes and tube will house a fibre optic cable that will run between control systems in the city, new water reservoirsand the new wellfield in Miltonvale Park.

"When we developed our new wellfield, the amount of data that we need to share amongst all our pieces of infrastructure became too much for our old radio system from back in the 70s," said water and sewer manager Richard MacEwen.

"We needed to upgrade."

One piece of information that needs to be communicated, MacEwen gave as an example, is the water levels in the reservoirs, so the wellfields know when to pump water.

Charlottetown residents should not notice any change as this work goes forward, said MacEwen. The goal is to simply ensure that the water continues to flow every time they turn the tap.

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