Company Offers Lease Program for Emergency Flushing Systems

Through news coverage, and in many cases personal experience, water system operators have all been affected in one way or another by the destructive forces of hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, earthquakes, and mud slides over the course of the past year. In addition to causing massive loss of life and property, these natural disasters have had a profound impact on the distribution of potable water.

As a result of the hurricanes in Florida and other natural disasters around the world, Hydro-Guard® realized the need for a proactive program that would allow for the immediate deployment of emergency flushing units into the most critical areas of a water distribution system following a disaster.

The realization evolved into the development of Hydro-Guard’s Emergency Response Lease Program. Through this program utilities can include the HG-6 portable, automatic and programmable flushing system in their Crisis Management Plans without dedicating capital funds, and they can initiate communication with Hydro-Guard well in advance of a catastrophic event.

“The ability to restore service back to normal immediately following a disaster, without having to dedicate already exhausted distribution staff to manual flushing procedures, further emphasizes the value of having portable programmable flushing units on-hand as part of your emergency response plan,” said Dawn Barnard, Operations Specialist for Hole Montes Inc., one of Southwest Florida’s largest water and wastewater system engineering consulting firms.

The Hydro-Guard HG-6 Emergency Response Lease Program offers two service commitment levels: one guarantees a utility that a pre-specified number of flushing systems will be made available within six business days; the second option is based on availability at the time a need arises.

“Though our mission is to develop advanced flushing methods for the improvement of drinking water, we are equally dedicated to assisting municipal water distribution providers worldwide, especially those who have suffered distribution failures caused by a disaster,” said Thomas Taylor, P.E., president of Hydro-Guard. “We have worked hard to make this program easy to participate in and very affordable for the utilities.”

In minutes, emergency response teams can deploy and program the automatic flushing system. The HG-6 can be programmed for as many as six flushes per day with flush durations ranging from one minute to 12 hours.

The self-supportive unit comes standard with a water-proof integrated programmer, sampling port, adjustable height hydrant connection, and erosion-control splash pad. The splash pad provides additional stability for the unit. Its adjustable height connection allows for up to eight inches of height adjustment, enabling the operator to lower or raise the connection to fit virtually any hydrant in the field. And, the unit is equipped with an engineered dechlorination system for the protection of environmentally sensitive areas within a distribution system.

The Hydro-Guard HG-6 helps utilities reduce operating expenses by redirecting manpower to more critical areas within the operation, and by drastically reducing water waste as compared to traditional hydrant flushing techniques.

For additional information on the HG-6 or the Hydro-Guard Emergency Response Lease program, contact Davis Wolf, National Account Sales Manager for Hydro-Guard at (888) 277-4520. WW