Associated Engineering is proud to be named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for the 12th consecutive yearAssociated Engineering has, once again, been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, re-qualifying as a Platinum Member of this prestigious awards program. As a Canadian employee-owned company, we are proud to receive this award honouring excellence and innovation among privately-owned Canadian companies.

Martin Jobke, President & CEO, of Associated Engineering says, “Our staff are the reason that we’ve received this award for 12 consecutive years. This award is a tribute to their dedication and creativity, and their commitment to uncompromising client service. We would not be a Best Managed Company without them.”

We believe the Best Managed Companies award distinguishes us from our competitors, and is one of the reasons why staff choose to work at Associated Engineering.

Key achievements in 2019 included winning two Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards of Excellence, for the University of Saskatchewan Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence, and for the Calgary Zoo Flood Mitigation Project.

In addition, we attained COR (Certificate of Recognition for Safety) certification in Ontario, expanded our Member-in-Training Program company-wide, implemented an online information management tool, and expanded our team of climate science experts.

Through the recommendations of our Women in Science and Engineering Retention (WISER) committee, we expanded our Mentoring Program to include Mentoring Circles, a form of mentoring which includes six to eight peers and a facilitator/mentor.

In 2019, we also celebrated 10 years as a carbon neutral company - part of our contribution to reducing our carbon footprint.

To our clients, thank you for continuing to select Associated Engineering as your consultant of choice. This award would not be possible without your trust in us. featured:

p5 Port Moody Pathway

p7 Wood Buffalo SCADA

p9 Alberta Solar Power

Published by the Associated Engineering

Group of companies

2020 ISSUE #1

Associated Engineering receives Brian Eckel Pinnacle Award and two ACEC-SK Awards of ExcellenceAssociated Engineering’s Whelan Bay Access Road project received the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies - Saskatchewan (ACEC-SK)’s highest award, the Brian Eckel Pinnacle Award, as well as an Award of Excellence, at the Awards of Distinction event in November 2019. ACEC-SK’s annual Awards celebrate the achievements of the consulting engineering and geoscience industry.

The Whelan Bay Access Road is a new 1.1 kilometre roadway providing access to Whelan Bay and Whiteswan Provincial Park, approximately 100 kilometres north of Prince Albert. Associated’s team designed the roadway using data attained from a LiDAR survey, which provided the detail

needed to design the route through this rugged, fully treed area. The new roadway provides stable and effective long-term access for the community.

Two projects, both from Associated Engineering, received the Brian Eckel Award of Excellence, the other being the City of Regina’s Hauled Waste Receiving Station.

Regina’s new Hauled Waste Receiving Station is a hauler-operated facility with automated site entry. The receiving station includes facilities to separate solids, equalize flows to protect downstream treatment processes from toxic loads, and collect hauled waste load characteristics for billing purposes. Congratulations to both teams!

Tłı̨chǫ All-Season Road wins GoldThe Tłıc̨hǫ All-Season Road project received Gold for Project Development at the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships Awards. Congratulations to our team, which provided Owner’s Engineering services for this project. Associated Engineering assisted in the Phase 1 - Request for Qualifications and the Phase 2 - Request for Proposal stages.

The Tłıc̨hǫ All-Season Road project involves the design, finance, operation, maintenance and rehabilitation of a 97 kilometre all-season gravel

highway in the Northwest Territories. The project is notable for its unique approach to handling long-term risks related to climate change, which is occurring at an unprecedented rate in the North. The territorial government worked with its advisors and our climate specialist to develop a bespoke climate change risk-sharing regime using cutting-edge modelling, enabling the partners to more effectively price this risk for long-term operations and maintenance of a road constructed above the permafrost. This climate change risk-sharing model could be used on other projects globally.

in this issue1 Associated Engineering is

proud to be named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for the 12th consecutive year

2 Associated Engineering receives Brian Eckel Pinnacle Award and two ACEC-SK Awards of Excellence

Tłıc̨hǫ All-Season Road wins Gold

3 Kent Eklund named Vice President, Transportation

Clayton Reservoir Wins Award of Merit from Canadian Architect Awards

4 ITS will improve safety on Highway 16 in Saskatchewan

Shaping our Shared Future

5 New pathway in City of Port Moody improves safety and accessibility

6 Staff Profile - Sean Nicholl

7 SCADA communications network enables remote operations in Wood Buffalo

8 Solar power provides sustainable energy to remote northern Alberta community

9 Building Communities

10 Turf irrigation keeps grass greener

If you’d like to receive AE Today electronically, write to aetoday@ae.ca

(l to r) Ian Alarcon and Kurtis Doney from City of Regina, Stan Torgunrud, Cory Wihlidal, and

Paul Pinder, from Associated receive Award for Regina Hauled Waste Receiving Station

(l to r) Patrick Murphy, Jeff Horan, Josh Richer from Saskatchewan Ministry of Highways,

and Paul Pinder receive the Brian Eckel Pinnacle Award for Whelan Bay Access Road

ISSUE 1 • 20202

Associated Engineering is pleased to announce the appointment of Kent Eklund as Vice President, Transportation. He succeeds Bryan Petzold, who retired after more than 14 years with the company.

In his new role, Kent will join Alan Emery (Senior Vice President, Transportation) and Don Kennedy (Vice President, Transportation Structures) in leading our transportation practice. Kent will support and help expand our services in transit systems, transportation planning, traffic engineering, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and roadways and highways design.

Martin Jobke, President & CEO of the Associated Engineering group of companies, says, “I’m pleased to welcome Kent to our leadership team. He brings valued expertise in transit systems and transportation planning to our staff and clients.”

Alan adds, “Kent’s expertise in strategic planning and stakeholder engagement will be a benefit to our clients on transportation projects.”

Kent has almost 30 years of experience specializing in project management, planning, design, and construction of transportation projects ranging up to $1 billion in construction value. He also brings experience in public consultation and stakeholder engagement.

Since joining our Edmonton office in 2014, he has helped to grow our Transportation Division, overseeing the delivery of key projects including Edmonton’s Capital Line Light Rail Transit Extension, St. Albert Transportation Master Plan, and Alberta Transportation’s Highway 43 Functional Planning and Design.

The Clayton Reservoir project in Surrey, BC has received the 2019 Canadian Architect Award of Merit. The annual awards honour design excellence for projects.

The original Clayton Reservoir was built in 1966, with an estimated storage capacity of 7.3 million litres. A condition survey and seismic assessment of the structure concluded that the tank needed to be replaced. Metro Vancouver retained Associated Engineering to evaluate two sites for the reservoir replacement and expansion. During the study, the team identified a third option that facilitated effective use of the available land and enabled the City of Surrey to continue to develop their plans for neighbourhood amenities, including two soccer pitches for the community.

Metro Vancouver subsequently retained Associated Engineering to complete the preliminary and detailed design of a new, two-cell, 22.5 million litre reservoir. The work included public consultation support services to the City of Surrey’s Parks and Engineering Department and planning for a future Phase 2 reservoir. The team also developed an innovative architectural and landscape concept to mitigate the reservoir’s 8.5 metre height and mass. On cloudy days, the white upper half of the tank blends with the sky, while the dark base grounds the project, connecting it with the surrounding environment. Landscaping integrates the reservoir site with the surrounding community and Hazelgrove Park.

Kent Eklund (left) and Alan Emery, Senior Vice

President, Transportation

Kent Eklund named Vice President, Transportation

Clayton Reservoir provides additional drinking water capacity and improves resilience to

warmer and drier summers in response to the changing climate

Clayton Reservoir Wins Award of Merit from

Canadian Architect Awards

3

ITS will improve safety on Highway 16 in Saskatchewan

Highway 16 in Saskatchewan is a primary east-west corridor used by travellers, businesses, mines, and the farming community. Located in a rural environment, the highway has low traffic volumes; however, the corridor between Saskatoon and Wynyard experiences a disproportionate number of accidents due to wildlife collisions and extreme weather events. BHP Billiton, on behalf of the SAFE Corridor Alliance, a consortium of industry partners and government agencies, wished to improve safety along this corridor, and retained Associated Engineering to conduct an assessment and develop an intelligent transportation system plan.

Project Manager, Jon Medori, tells us, “As part of this process, we completed a needs assessment report, which provided input to a functional requirements study. An important part of the process was the gap analysis workshop we conducted with key stakeholders from the SAFE Corridor Alliance.”

Our report highlighted four key intelligent transportation systems to support the goals of the SAFE Corridor Alliance:

1. Wildlife detection and management systems2. Road-Weather Information Systems3. Advanced warning systems at mine access roads and at the

Highway 2 junction with Highway 164. Traveller information systems

Once we completed the functional requirements report, the project team proceeded to develop a conceptual design report which provided more detailed information on the key systems and identified supporting systems and improvements, as follows:

• Telecommunications and data management systems to send and receive data between field devices, stakeholders, and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure’s Data Management Centre in Regina

• Integration of the systems into the central Advanced Traffic Management System software in the Data Management Centre

• Intersection treatments at Highway 2, including left turn lanes on Highway 16 for eastbound and westbound traffic, a right turn lane for Highway 16 eastbound, and lane channelization.

Jon adds, “Following approval of the conceptual design report, we developed an implementation plan which prioritized the systems and identified a schedule for implementing the plan. We also developed a benefit-cost analysis to compare the safety benefits and resulting cost savings to the capital costs involved in deploying the intelligent transportation systems infrastructure.”

Staff involved in the project include Jon Medori, Keenan Kitasaka, Nancy En, Matt du Toit, and Michael Tolboom.

Shaping our Shared FutureJeremy Fyke, Manager of Climate Services and a Climate Specialist, has a passion for translating climate change science into adaptation and resilience actions. Coming to Associated from a climate science research background, Jeremy maintains strong networks with climate science colleagues. He is particularly connected to the international community of researchers developing cutting edge research to inform coastal communities on the risk of sea level rise from the melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

In recognition of his expertise, Jeremy was invited to join the faculty of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver as an Adjunct Faculty member.

In addition to this exciting work, Jeremy is engaged across several broader initiatives outside of day-to-day work with Associated to develop Canadian climate resiliency. Jeremy is also an Adjunct Professor at Colorado University, and a member of the Federal Adaptation Platform Climate Services Working Group and the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Private Sector

Committee. He has been invited to present to the Conference Board of Canada on climate literacy and climate action.

Jeremy examines crevasses on a glacier in New Zealand

Highway 16 SAFE Corridor route

ISSUE 1 • 20204

New pathway in City of Port Moody improves safety and accessibilitySituated on the eastern edge of the Burrard Inlet in BC’s Lower Mainland, the City of Port Moody is a scenic community that includes many parks, trails, and pathways. With a commitment to sustainability and active transportation, the city has been improving its network of pathways, in particular connections to the Lower Mainland’s transit system, SkyTrain.

The completion of the SkyTrain Evergreen Line through Port Moody, as well as Park and Ride facilities, increased pedestrian traffic on the existing pathway to the Moody Centre SkyTrain Station. The City wished to replace the existing wooden staircase with a larger structure, and provide universal accessibility.

The City engaged Associated Engineering to provide design and construction services for a new ramp, staircase, and landscaping. The ramp would connect to the existing Moody Street Overpass and pathway to Rocky Point Park, which Associated Engineering had recently designed.

Project Manager, Chris Cheng, tells us, “The steep topography, with slopes of about 2 to 1, and small site posed a significant design constraint. The ramp design needed to fit within the site and meet the City’s maximum grade requirement of 8%.”

To meet grade requirements, segmental block retaining walls were incorporated into the design. The final design included a pressure treated timber stairway, similar to those we used at Port Moody’s Easthill Park. To foster sustainability, timber stairs, timber railing, and wooden park benches were used, rather than steel, concrete, or plastic.

Construction Inspector, Artem Zaporozhets adds, “As part of the design, we also investigated the City’s safety concerns regarding the nearby Moody Street. The pathway design and signage improves safety.” The design also includes drainage, utilities, and wayfinding.

In keeping with Port Moody’s reputation as the City of Arts, the City incorporated a public art display into the project. Computer images were generated from drawings collected at organized community events. Images were cut into aluminum panels that were integrated into the fencing along the new multi-use path. On sunny days, the artwork casts shadows of the images onto the pathway.

The project was completed in November 2019.

Key personnel on this project are Chris Cheng, Artem Zaporozhets, Doug Falkins, Winnie Li, James Nikolai, and Allan Luong.

New access area includes artwork,

benches, and landscaping

New pathway provides a direct connection

from the Moody Street SkyTrain Station to Moody

Street and the overpass to Rocky Point Park

5

Sean Nicoll’s keen interest in protecting the environment leads to lasting infrastructure solutions As a university student, Sean Nicoll originally wanted to pursue studies in marine biology, but he soon discovered that his academic talents were better suited to a career in environmental engineering. He enjoyed the idea of working with the environment, flood control, water treatment, and waste management.

Sean shares that he was very fortunate to have some good teachers and coaches along the way, who sparked his interest in the physical world and solving problems. His mentors taught him to evaluate both sides of an issue, look for the unintended consequences of a decision, and know when to listen.

Early in his career as an Environmental Engineer, Sean found his aptitude for learning and managing projects led to more responsibilities and larger opportunities. Looking back, Sean says, “I learned the value of perseverance to achieve my goals, and to seek out the opportunities I wanted.”

Sean shares that a friend encouraged him to explore opportunities with Associated Engineering at a time when he was looking for a change. Sean felt that the company would be a good fit. There were opportunities to work on landfills and other containment projects, as well as the potential to work on water and wastewater projects. Sean recalls, “My friend spoke highly of Associated and the company had a great reputation in the industry and with clients.”

Since joining Associated in 2006, Sean says his most memorable projects have included the Alexis Casino, which was his first multi-discipline project; the Sylvan Lake and Lac La Biche marina projects; snow storage sites; and water projects for the Capital Region Water Service Commissions. He tells us, “It’s rewarding to be able to work with clients over several years and see their long-range plans come to fruition.”

Sean tells us that he finds that projects go much better if you can make a connection and develop relationships with the people you work with. He

says, “Strong relationships make the project experience more enjoyable and you get a better final product through collaboration.”

Today as a mentor himself, Sean feels that mentoring is a great way to help young professionals to develop and, at the same time, gain different perspectives.

As Regional Client Service Manager of our Grande Prairie office, Sean says, “I enjoy consulting. It’s fulfilling to get to work with clients to solve their problems, collaborate on teams to design solutions, and partner with contractors to build them.”

Sean’s approach is to find environmentally sustainable solutions, balancing clients’ expectations and budgets. He relates, “At the end of project, it’s very satisfying to turn the facility over to the client.”

In his personal time, Sean enjoys playing squash, going cross country skiing, and renovating houses. He volunteers with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA). Sean also gives back to the community as a volunteer at the University of Alberta. He enjoys talking with the students as part of career fairs and Science Olympics.

“I like the fact that, although my projects may be low profile, they are important, long-term infrastructure that forms sustainable communities.”

Sean Nicoll (left) with Helder Afonso, VP & General

Manager Alberta North

Sean with his wife, Leona

ISSUE 1 • 20206

The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta has grown significantly over the past 15 years. The Municipality has continued to expand its water and wastewater infrastructure since the 1980s to meet demands of its growing population. The system includes more than 50 facilities in a 200 kilometre radius, many in remote areas. Operating, maintaining, and monitoring these facilities has become a challenge. To assist day-to-day operations, the Municipality needed to be able to operate and monitor the facilities remotely.

The Municipality retained Associated Engineering to plan, design, and implement a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) communication system. The SCADA system needed to be secure, robust, flexible, and scalable to meet current and future requirements.

The Municipality’s remote water and wastewater facilities are normally unattended, with operations staff monitoring the sites using a mix of older radio and leased telephone line technologies. Communications outages were starting to become a problem. Thus, standardizing and modernizing the network were a necessity.

The project was developed in three stages. Stage One was to develop a SCADA Master Plan for the Municipality, including developing a network plan for every water and wastewater facility. Project Manager, Steve Justus, tells us, “The SCADA Master Plan laid the groundwork for the architecture of a new high-speed radio network composed of a ‘backhaul’, a high-speed network of six radio access points, and ‘edge’ sites that connect to the backhaul.”

Stage two involved the design and implementation of the backhaul. Six radio towers were erected, extending from Fort McMurray north of the Athabasca River to 25 kilometres south of the city. These were equipped with high-bandwidth, point-to-point radios linking them together. Point-to-multipoint radios were also installed on these towers to provide radio coverage throughout the urban service area. Network routers at each backhaul site were configured to separate the water, wastewater, and radio management traffic into three mutually exclusive networks, all sharing the same physical infrastructure. This phase was completed as a design-build, with Associated Engineering acting as the Owner’s Engineer.

Stage three connected the edge sites to the backhaul network and integrated process data from these edge sites to the central operations teams at the Fort McMurray Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants. We conducted site inspections on the remote sites, identifying control requirements to make existing facilities compatible with the new technologies. Radio path studies were

conducted for all edge sites to provide height requirements for radio connectivity to the backhaul.

During Stage three, we upgraded the Water Treatment Plant control computer software and hardware. The hardware was replaced with high-quality, rack-mounted servers running in a virtualized environment that allows for new servers to be added with minimal additional hardware expense. It also allows the ability to relocate functions between physical hardware, allowing for ease of maintenance.

We migrated the existing SCADA graphics to the new servers, and developed new graphics for the remote stations as they were linked to the backhaul network. This involved creating high-performance graphics for the water distribution network, and traditional graphics using an existing template for the wastewater network.

Steve says, “Performing this work as a design-build meant that work could be fast-tracked and easily adapted to issues with legacy systems, as they came to light.” This allowed for maximum flexibility, collaboration, and ease of integration to meet the project goals.

The new communications networks will help reduce transportation costs and associated greenhouse gas emissions for operator travel to remote sites. In addition, the new system is much more responsive and allows for more detailed supervision and reporting from each site. This improves system resiliency in the event of environmental crises and extreme weather events.

The project was completed in August 2019.

Our key personnel were Steve Justus, Luc Blanchette, Ryan Jalowica, Arsalaan Rehman, and Chris Bredo.

SCADA operators

SCADA communications network enables remote

operations in Wood Buffalo

7

Solar power provides sustainable energy to remote northern Alberta communityLocated in northeastern Alberta in the hamlet of Fort Chipewyan, the Three Nations Energy Solar Power Generation Project, owned by three indigenous partners, will reduce the communities’ reliance on diesel fuel, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, the community has experienced a significant increase in demand for electricity, and as a result, there is less fuel storage contingency at the existing ATCO Third Lake Power Plant. This places the community at an increased risk of running out of fuel and needing to fly in diesel during non-frozen conditions.

Working with ATCO Electric (operations) and Greenplanet Energy Analytics (management), Three Nations Energy retained Associated Environmental Consultants to complete an environmental evaluation and provide regulatory support to develop the project. Associated’s team brought experience with regulatory approvals for renewable energy projects in Alberta, and includes field biologists based in Fort McMurray who have experience working in Fort Chipewyan and with local indigenous community members.

Led by Project Manager, Ryan Ancelin, our team completed a variety of wildlife and vegetation field surveys within the remote location. Work had to be completed in a limited amount of time to support a tight regulatory submission schedule driven by the need to acquire project approvals for construction during winter 2020.

Ryan tells us, “We have now completed the breeding bird, vegetation surveys, and soil

inspections used to complete a Renewable Energy Project report submitted to Alberta Environment and Parks. This information was also used to develop an Environmental Evaluation and Mitigation Measures Report, submitted to the Alberta Utilities Commission in support of acquiring the regulatory approval to construct and operate the project.”

Associated also supported the project through the acquisition of public land dispositions and a third-party glare hazard analysis, required due to the proximity of the project to an airport.

Our team is working closely with the project team, including Greenplanet Energy Analytics, ATCO, and local indigenous community members from the Mikisew Cree First Nation and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

The construction of the solar power generation station will help reduce diesel consumption. When in full operation, 800,000 fewer litres of diesel fuel will be required at the existing diesel power plant each year.

The project is expected to be completed in 2020.

Our key personnel involved on this project are Ryan Ancelin, Joel Gervais, and Stephanie Findlay.

Existing Phase 1 Solar Power Site

Overview of Phase 2 Site

Solar power project will reduce greenhouse gases as well as the number of diesel tankers on the winter road by 25%

ISSUE 1 • 20208

Kiarash Kaveh, M.Sc., P.Eng. has joined our Vancouver office as a Structural Engineer. He has 12 years of experience in structural engineering design, computer modeling, and field inspections on a variety of building, bridge, industrial, and marine projects in Canada and abroad.

Employee News

Helen Leblanc has joined our Edmonton office as a Mechanical BIM Lead. She has almost 30 years of experience with BIM modeling and design, project execution planning, coordination, and supervision. Helen’s experience also includes IPD projects and Digital Project Delivery.

Brenda Miskimmin, Ph.D., R.P. Bio. has been appointed Manager, Water & Earth Sciences in our Vernon office. She has 30 years of experience in aquatic science with expertise in limnology, paleolimnology, aquatic toxicology, water quality, and microbiology.

Derek Blayney, P.Eng., PMP has joined our Calgary office as an Airport Specialist. He has 10 years of project management experience focused on airports, including runways, taxiways, stormwater drainage, baggage handling systems, lighting systems, and facilities.

Eli Movafeghi, MBA has joined our Toronto office as an Electrical Designer. She has 11 years of experience in electrical design, construction administration, and commissioning of mission criteria, critical facilities, and industrial and commercial buildings.

Gul Khan, C.E.T, has joined our Kitchener office as a Lead Field Services Representative. He has over 20 years of experience in the design, construction, and management of a wide range of municipal infrastructure projects.

Building Communities

The Edmonton office raised $1,000 at their annual golf tournament. Tracy MacDonald (middle) and Bryden Coonan (right) presented the donation to Youth Empowerment Support Services.

The Vancouver office conducted another donation drive for basic necessities and household items. Stacy Boczulak (left) and Rachel Allen helped load up the vehicle for delivery to the YMCA/YWCA

Crabtree Corner for people living in the Downtown Eastside.

Staff in the Edmonton office participated in another Partners For Life blood donation with a record 14 donors, raising the total for 2019 to 71 donations – a new record for the office! We helped up to 213 people with our blood donation efforts.

9

Turf irrigation keeps grass greenerAssociated Engineering has expanded our services over the years to include landscape architecture and urban planning and design. With the addition of landscape architecture and urban design expertise, we have provided clients with design services for parks, sports fields, greenways, trails, roadway boulevards, municipal, residential and commercial developments, and facilities.

Along with these services, we have honed our expertise in keeping our clients’ grass green. In our Lethbridge office, we have several noted specialists with experience in turf irrigation design. Our team of turf irrigation specialists includes Ben Leusink, Engineer-of-Record, who has completed the Principles of Irrigation Design with the Irrigation Association; Dean Maruyama, who is responsible for Quality Assurance and has over 40 years of experience in the irrigation design and construction industry; James Walshe, who has served as Resident inspector; and Kristi Stickel and Jaquelyn Jensen, both with experience in design and drafting.

In our Edmonton office, Tyson Buckley has experience completing designs for irrigation and Chris Parfitt has overseen construction of turf irrigation on projects. Ann Stephenson in our Victoria office has also designed and overseen construction of irrigation systems for sports fields.

In early 2019, Associated Engineering purchased software called Irrigation FX, which is an add-on to AutoCAD. Ben shares, “This program helps to create efficiencies during the irrigation design process and helps to develop a robust design.”

Over the past several years, our Lethbridge team has completed design and construction services for multiple parks and boulevards throughout the City of Lethbridge. The projects range between large 29 hectare parks with over 100 zones and 1,500 irrigation heads to smaller 1.2 hectare linear parks. The team has also completed drip irrigation systems for tree and shrub needs along major roadways throughout Lethbridge. Currently, the Regina office is working with the Lethbridge team to complete an irrigation design for the RCMP cemetery located in Regina.

For more information on our turf irrigation design services, contact Ben Leusink at leusinkb@ae.ca or 403.329.1404.

Completed turf irrigation for a park in Lethbridge

Irrigation FX software helps to optimize design of turf irrigation

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