REGINA — SaskTel and Whitecap Dakota First Nation (WDFN) announced today a pilot project to enhance the Indigenous community’s management of critical water resources with smart technologies.
“Utilizing SaskTel’s LoRaWAN network (long-range wide area network) to provide the necessary connectivity and automated water meter reading technology, the aim of the pilot project is to help WDFN save time and money by reducing manual effort needed to collect readings, while also providing decision makers with complete and accurate data that will produce key insights and trends into the community’s water usage,” explains a SaskTel press release.
WDFN is located 26 kilometres south of Saskatoon. As part of the pilot project, smart water meters have been installed at key locations with the highest water usage in the community, including the Dakota Dunes Casino, Dakota Dunes Resort and the Whitecap Housing Corp. Apartment Building, according to the release.
“If the pilot proves to be successful, SaskTel and WDFN will look to expand the scope of the project and deploy smart water meters to all 200 residential homes and commercial buildings across the community,” the release says.
“The Whitecap Finance Team is continuously looking to use technology to achieve greater efficiencies and reduce costs,” said Kelly Kozak, CMA, CPA and chief financial officer of WDFN, in the release. “Following the successful community-wide fibre implementation project with SaskTel it was a natural progression to collaborate again, leveraging this infrastructure on the smart water meter pilot project.
“The ability to have access to real time water consumption data has allowed Whitecap to significantly streamline its water and sewer utility billing process and enable active monitoring of a critical resource for the community,” Kozak said.
“At SaskTel, we are proud to foster innovative homegrown solutions like this exciting initiative with the Whitecap Dakota First Nation,” said Doug Burnett, SaskTel president and CEO. “The lessons learned from this project will serve as the foundation for future smart solution enhancements in Indigenous communities as well as other urban and rural communities across Saskatchewan.”
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