Year End Report on CWWA’s Involvement in ISO Standards Development

CWWA’s members have participated in ISO Technical Committees 224 (Municipal Service Assessment), 251 (Asset Management), 275 (Sludge and Residuals Management (Water Reuse). They have done so by commenting on documents flowing from these TCs and SCs and where possible by attending meetings. Canada hosted three of these meetings courtesy of Halifax Water (crisis management), Cole Engineering (water efficiency management) and IAND Canada (stormwater management). Participation in these ISO activities is professionally rewarding as it provides access to the best international advice and positions from experts in up to 35 countries.

 

In addition to the three standards published in 2007: namely ISO 24510 (assessment of customer service), ISO 24511 (assessment of wastewater services) and ISO 24512 (assessment of drinking water services), TC 224 has just published ISO 24518 (crisis management for water utilities).  

A number of additional standards are about to be published by TC 224 namely:

• ISO 24516-1 and 24516-3 (asset management for distribution and collection systems respectively), 
• ISO 24521 (management of basic onsite sanitation services), an 
• ISO 24523 (benchmarking of water services).  

Still more standards are in the development process: 

•  ISO 24516-2 and ISO 24516-4 (asset management of treatment plants), 
• ISO 24525 (stormwater management), 
• ISO 24524 (flushable products), 
• ISO 24526 (water efficiency management).  

A new project just started is Guidelines on Alternative Water Supply in Emergency Situations.

CWWA members participated in TC 251 which published ISO 55000 (overview, principles and terminology for asset management), ISO 55001 (requirements for asset management) and ISO 55002 (guidelines for implementing 55001), and TC 253 (now TC 282 SC1) which has published: ISO 16075-1, ISO 16075-2 and ISO 16075-3 (regarding the use of treated wastewater for irrigation), with ISO 16075-4 (adapting irrigation systems to treated wastewater) in the final stages of publication.

Members participate in TC 275 most actively in WG 4 which is writing a standard for the application of biosolids on land for food, non-food and land reclamation purposes.

Finally, CWWA has members active in the remaining TC 282 work on water reuse in urban areas and in risk monitoring of water reuse.

The existing standards can be purchased from SCC at https://www.scc.ca/en/standards/get-standards.  CWWA encourages members to do so as these are excellent sources of the best international advice on the subjects and sales demonstrates to SCC the value CWWA members place on these activities.

 

CWWA members will continue their participation in these activities in 2016 and anyone who has an interest in learning more and possibly participating in the activities should contact Duncan Ellison (duncan.ellison@videotron.ca).