水勉強会のブログ

Hello, everyone!
This is Kana.


Today was the last day of our conference.
We had technical tour to drinking water plant and waste water treatment plant.
I will introduce my experience today, not only about technical tour but also about other things.


1. Montreal Jean-R. Marcotte wastewater treatment plant
In the morning, we visited wastewater treatment plant in Montreal.
This WWTP is the third largest plant in the world and treats a volume of water represtnting 50% of the wastewaters treated in the province of Quebec.
At first, we had lecture from representative of this plant.

He said that until 25 years ago, wastewater went to river directly.
But the situation changed and now there are regulations about concentration of suspended soild and phosphorous in treated wastewater.
Effluent from this plant meets the standard but there seems to be no clear guideline of nitrogen like Japanese one.
Also, until 10 years ago, each minicipality was in charge of portable water and WWTP in the province of Quebec but they are integrated to one in 2000.
So far, there are no private sector doing water supply or wastewater treatment in the province of Quebec.
In this plant, sludge (polluted mud produced during wastewater treatment) is used as incinerated material for power generation or fertilizer.
They are now trying to make a disinfection system by ozone, advance treatment of water.

sewage tank

piping system
]

aeration tank


2. Sainte-Rose drinking water plant and Centre d'interpretation de I'eau (CIEAU),Laval
In the after noon, we visited drinking water plant and education center in Laval, southwestern part of Quebec.
We saw exhibition for children about water supply and water problems.
But the problem was...all exhibitions are written in French!
And we found that CIEAU gives children chance to know the process of water treatment through simple experiments.
I think this set of experience is very nice to know whole water treatment process.
After that, we saw sedimentation tank but due to time shortage, we couldn't see any other points.
The representative of CIEAU said we can drink tap water in this area directly in aspect of water quality, but people continue to buy bottled water. CIEAU is promoting portable bottle for tap water in stead of bottled water.

river side

experimental room

explantation of water treatment flow

exhibition room

sedimentation tank

3. China town
Dinner time!!
Every lunch we had same things, sandwitch, cheeze and apple, so we really felt that it is so nice to eat some Asian food.
We went to China town near the conference hall and had noodle, soup and fried springroll.
C'est bon


4. Ice hockey game
In the evening, after dinner, we went to ice hockey game!!
Ice hockey is national sport of canada, so there were many people in the studium.
This is my first time to see the ice hockey game, and I was very surprised to see "official fighting". Judge didn't stop the fighting between one player and onother for a while...
Anyway, ice hockey was so exciting and cool for me.
I hope I have another chance to see ice hockey in the future.







As we don't have conference tomorrow, unfortunately, we will go to Quebec city tomorrow!!
That's all for my part today, see you

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Dear all,

This is BB again, today is my 2nd turn for the congress reporting in the blog.
23th of September was the last day of the official sessions of the congress. On this day I have joined the session on "securing new and traditional water sources for the future" which was consisted of a series of presentations and discussions on water reuse, recycling, its quality, standards and regulations. Compared with the previous day`s session on Asia and Pacific regional forum which were focused on the developing countries, this day`s session was a bit different. Because it was more focused on the successful cases of mostly from developed countries including Japan, US, UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore where they have already introduced new water recycling systems and adopted reuse water regulations or standards.

I guess it was in the past when people seem to see the water as limitless and for the most part taken for granted. But it is an absolutely getting more and more scarce than it was in the past. Among the water associations, Singapore water association is seemed as working very successfully in implementing the project on using reclaimed water for drinking water. Water recycling involves treating municipal wastewater to remove sediments and impurities for reuse. Historically, the major reuse has been for crop and landscape irrigation.

In general water recycling and reuse plays an important role in overall water supply and management program. The question grabbed my attention was about quality of the reclaimed water and public perception and acceptance on the water. However the presenters were saying that it is economical and ecological to use reclaimed water for drinking, it may arise a serious issue of health problem in the middle and long term.

The congress and exhibition was convened by more than three thousand dynamic and professional from more than 100 countries and continued for five days. Today during our break at the congress, we have visited Biosphere Museem where we had a chance to see and observe waste water treatment wetland and plant and enjoy solar-house and eco-car.

For the closing, we have participated in the Gala dinner all together. And technical tour to waste water and drinking water plants will be the last event of the IWA congress tomorrow. Kana chan will take you to the plants through the blog tomorrow, so hope you will join and stay with us online.

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Bonjour Mademoiselle et Monsieur!

Comment allez-vous? Je vais bien.

Je m'appele Aki encore. Je voudrais Je veux écrire le journal.


Hi, this is Aki again from Montreal.
These sentences are simple French greetings, though very simple ones below in English.

"Hello, ladies and jentleman.
How are you? I'm fine.
I am Aki again. I want to write diary."

That's why I wrote such sentences in French, there are lots of signs and explanations written in French and I just want to say something in French, haha:)
But, in fact, it is really interesting and fun for me to communicate with language used there, French in Montreal. So I want to speak in spite of very basic one, if I can and get chance.

Actually today is 4th day of this conference. Lots of things were happened and we could meet and get networking with many people coming from all over the world. But it includes one bad thing especially for me.
...　my wallet was stolen in my room of our Youth Hostel yesterday... while I slept zzz. But fortunately there was only $60 in it in my memory. But of course this amount is problematic for a student and I didn't have no Canadian dollar, only some US dollar, Chinese RMB and Japanese yen. This happening really got me thinking, because there were a few way to get money to survive. Fortunately I can borrow some money from Kana, but if I'm only in rural area in overseas... I cannot imagine;;;;
And at this evening I could get new and emergency Mastercard by UPS to YH. So I can enjoy conference session and diner party with YWP to day:P


Thus, let's get back to main point of this blog.
Today I attended workshop below.
"Impact of the 2008-2009 global financial water crisis on water and sanitation services"

In this session, workshop (though not characteristic one) many European and American planners, account workers and municipalities in water sector. Mainly discussed pricing for water tariff, and financial risk management and so on. And many times they discussed collecting same amount of investment from water business. About these points there were some case study, i.e. Romania and Chile. That's why they become careful about financial return, write-off, vicious unpaid and debtor increased because of bankruptcy in 2008-2009. No Japanese was there, but if they really want to expand water business to the world, this was important opportunity to know difficulties of water business in the world, I wondered and felt so.
As a result to attend these sessions, I perceived infrastructure business is very important to communicate with resident and people living and working in that country with face-to-face meeting. In spite of it, almost of Japanese communicate with only Japanese. During attending this, I have wondered what the aim to attend International meeting is. I felt we have to consider the way to communicate and way of global business. Until 2000, we increased the number of population and had money and technology which nobody can imitate. But after bankruptcy and growing developing countries, we have to face to the world to get business and indicate our presence. Well, I also must do it:(

After evening session, we attended Inaugural …???... reception in Intercontinental hotel. But it was for only networking with company person and presidents. Perhaps student were only us, haha ;P And next was dinner with YWP member again. Kana, Hime and me participated in this event and I happened to seat and have dinner with all of company persons. But fortunately 2 of them were Swedish researchers who had knew my favorite university in the world, Chalmers university of technology. So I talked with them with singing Swedish drinking song and some Swedish greetings. In addition, I got chance to chat in French with Belgium. The time was so fun for me to enjoy speaking other languages.

As remembered this conference, we could get lots of international networking and acquaintances. And the business and academic area of water is vast and huge, in Europe and America numerous people are relating to this world, indeed.
Tomorrow (indeed today) is the last day of this conference and held “Gala dinner”. I hope we can enjoy again and can feel or get precious and experiences, of course with drinking and eating nice dishes;P

Au revoir!!

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