Speaker: Susan Ancel, Director, One Water Planning, EPCOR

Title:  EPCOR’s One Water Journey of Integrated Resource Planning – A History of Innovation and Resiliency

EPCOR Water Services has utilized an Integrated Resource Planning approach to manage the Water utility in Edmonton since the early 1990s.  Integrated Resource Planning looks beyond the traditional master planning approaches focused solely on grey infrastructure solutions to opportunities to work with the environment and the community to identify approaches that build overall resiliency in the utility and position the utility as a partner for the changing community growth needs.   Since 2017 with the transfer of the Drainage utility from a City of Edmonton department into EPCOR has been approaching water management from a One Water perspective.   Susan will provide an overview of the successes of this One Water and Integrated Planning approach in Edmonton over the last few years, including our successes in water conservation, stormwater strategies and future direction to the wastewater systems in the community that make us a leader in Canada in management of our water resources.

Susan Ancel is responsible for the development of the strategic plans for the utility across the entire water cycle for EPCOR Water Services. Some of her accomplishments include being recognized for her development of the Integrated Resource Plan for flood mitigation for Edmonton that considered capital and operational risk mitigation planning, as well as the interrelationships between utilities, insurance, disaster response agencies and the public.