A new partnership between Miranda Water Technologies and Fleming College exemplifies why Peterborough and the Kawarthas is a world-renowned hub for excellence and innovation in watertech.

At an event at the post-secondary institution’s Kawartha Trades and Technology Centre (KTTC) in Peterborough on Thursday (October 17), Miranda Water Technologies announced a collaboration with Fleming’s Centre for Applied Machine Intelligence and Integration Technologies (CAMIIT) to develop technology for improving efficiency, sustainability, and performance in wastewater treatment.

The partnership aims to drive innovation in sustainable water management while advancing treatment and hands-on learning opportunities for students.

“Miranda Water Technologies is a global, established company that’s now taking its next steps in the Peterborough region with local ownership investing in the technology,” says Jamey Coughlin, Managing Director of Peterborough and the Kawarthas Economic Development (PKED). “In Peterborough, we’ve had many companies active in this space. This is something we do well, so it makes sense it’s happening here.”

Since 2008, Miranda Water Technologies has been a globally recognized leader in supporting the sustainable and environmentally friendly treatment of water and wastewater with water reuse systems for commercial and residential areas. Deployed in more than 40 countries across six continents, the company has 1,200 installations running globally, treating about 60 million litres of wastewater every day.

Originally founded in Türkiye, the majority of the shares of the company were acquired earlier this year by Peterborough investment company Viva Industries Inc. The focus of Miranda Water Technologies on re-using and repurposing biologically treated wastewater to water lawns, run irrigation systems, and clean roads, instead of using drinking water, was a large draw for Michael Skinner and Ryan Moore, Managing Partners of Viva Industries.

“They have a very strong focus on conservation, sustainability, and water reuse, so that’s the first thing that drew us to them,” says Skinner, who is also CEO of Miranda Water Technologies. “Miranda is not just cleaning or eliminating wastewater, but repurposing it.”

Compared to traditional centralized plants that rely on large-scale infrastructure, Miranda Water Technologies offers a modular system that can process wastewater from as few as 20 homes to as many as 1,500. The system is scalable so that, as housing projects expand over time — such as when a developer initially builds 50 homes before adding on another 100 or 200 homes in later years — new modules can be added.

“That makes it less expensive for a developer, which means those costs — or the interest on those costs — don’t get pushed down into the homeowner,” says Skinner. “If it’s not affordable for people to buy those homes, it doesn’t help the crisis we have when it comes to housing.”

In alignment with the Ontario government’s goal to build 1.5 million homes by 2031, the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC) has developed a regional housing plan that proposes to build 7,000 community rental units to address community housing wait lists. It is likely that communal services, which provide water and wastewater treatment to clusters of residences and commercial areas, will be part of this plan.

“We have lots of land in our region, so making that land serviceable will help on housing almost immediately,” Skinner says. “There’s a huge demand for repurposing water in Ontario and, with new subdivisions going in, we can connect the output of our system to support community fire suppression as well as lawn sprinkler systems.”

While Skinner notes the housing crisis in both Canada and the U.S. means Miranda would find success anywhere in North America, Peterborough is an especially good fit for the company because the region is world-renowned for its cleantech sector. In 2018, Water Canada labelled the region as the second-largest cleantech sector in Canada and Peterborough as the second-best city in Canada — and the best in Ontario — to launch a watertech start-up.

“Water and wastewater technology has always been our sweet spot because we’re surrounded by lakes, rivers, and clean waters,” says Coughlin. “But it’s also something which both of our post-secondary institutions are centres of excellence in.”

Along with the Centre for Applied Machine Intelligence and Integration Technologies, Fleming College also houses the Centre for the Advancement of Wastewater Technology (CAWT), the college’s longest-running applied research centre and the only college water research facility of its calibre in Canada. Based at the Frost Campus in Lindsay, CAWT is an internationally recognized hub for research, expertise, and resources with more than 25 accredited courses in wastewater training, inclusive of co-op training programs.

There’s also Trent University in Peterborough which, in addition to offering one of the country’s leading Environmental & Life Sciences graduate program, is the home of the award-winning Water Quality Centre, the most comprehensive mass spectrometry facility in Canada. The centre encourages and promotes award-winning research in the development and application of innovative techniques for measuring isotopes and trace amounts of contaminants in water and other environmental compartments.

“Peterborough has a really, really good reputation,” Skinner points out. “Both academic institutions are doing a lot of research internationally that’s getting great coverage, and they have great teams.”

Coughlin agrees, adding “It’s great to see another company choose Peterborough as the launch pad.”

The new partnership with Fleming College will see Miranda Water Technologies leveraging CAMITT’s work in automating processes to develop a SmartCell Control Module that will enhance Miranda’s Miracell® Rotating Biological Contactor (RBC).

The module uses a series of sensors to monitor wastewater in real time, offering a timelier and more consistent analysis compared to sending samples to a lab once per month. The real-time data can also be shared with users so they know how much water they are saving and, down the line, can be used for health studies and research.

“As part of our sustainability efforts, we really want to understand wastewater and its characteristics,” Skinner says. “The module is monitoring the characteristics of the wastewater, both when it comes into our system and when it goes back out. It lets us know how much our system is purifying and cleaning it, but it’s also monitoring the overall health of the system.”

The aim is not only to deploy this innovation on new systems, but also to implement it in the 1,200 existing installations across the world — which would generate a wealth of data. Skinner notes that, while individual communities might have their own data on wastewater, he is not aware of any studies that consolidates and compares wastewater real time data on a worldwide scale.

At the October 17 announcement, Fleming College President Maureen Adamson highlighted the broader impact of the collaboration.

“Partnering with forward-thinking companies like Miranda Water Technologies allows Fleming College to address critical challenges while giving our students invaluable hands-on experience with cutting-edge technologies,” she said. “This partnership exemplifies how Fleming is shaping the future of technology needed for sustainable, resilient communities.”

Skinner adds that the partnership will support student innovation and lead to success in multiple industries, as it combines IoT (Internet of Things) and wastewater management, which aren’t fields that typically go hand-in-hand.

“Individuals that work with us are going to come out having been exposed to two different and very important emerging industries,” he says. “Some of those students may not end up working for us — they may become entrepreneurs and maybe they’ll end up building an add-on piece to one of our systems — but having a strong ecosystem is really important. The more industries that are like-minded, the more that can work together for success.”

While Miranda Water Technologies manufactures its products mainly in Türkiye and partly in Brazil, Skinner explains that the “IoT and data management aspect would be the Canadian contribution.”

“The idea of making the system smart is the Canadian invention that gets set on top of the existing systems,” he says. “It all ties back to research. Peterborough makes perfect sense because we’re in close proximity to those students and faculty members that we can work with closely.”

Skinner notes the growth of watertech in the region would not be what it is without the help of Peterborough and Kawarthas Economic Development.

“They have been pushing water and green technology for a long time, and it’s their promotion that helped us identify why we can be here,” he says. “If a cleantech or watertech start-up were to launch in Canada, it makes sense to start in Peterborough.”

For more information about for Miranda Water Technologies, visit mirandawater.com.

This branded editorial was created in partnership with Peterborough & the Kawarthas Economic Development. If your organization or business is interested in a branded editorial, contact us.

Northumberland residents are invited to sit up straightly and take note of an upcoming virtual session about the importance of good posture.

The Northumberland PACE Speakers Series returns from its summer hiatus with a presentation at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 24 called “The Overall Effects of Posture on Health.”

Guest speaker Dr. Alban Merepeza will lead the conversation. Merepeza will explore the upper and lower body, including various health conditions related anatomically to these areas, such as upper crossed syndrome and lower crossed syndrome and their effect on a person’s overall health.

Merepeza is a graduate of the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. Prior to receiving his doctor of chiropractic degree, he obtained an Honours Bachelor of Science in psychology from Trent University, and a Master of Science degree from McMaster University’s rehabilitation sciences program.

Merepeza is currently completing the sports sciences residency program with the Canadian Royal College of Chiropractic Sport Sciences.

He works as a licensed chiropractor with Port Hope Sports and Rehabilitation Centre in Port Hope and has attended four Olympic Games, as well as the Mediterranean games and world championships, for wrestling, weightlifting, track and field, swimming, and skiing, acting as a team chiropractor.

Merepeza has a “passionate” interest in sport injuries and rehabilitation, as well as research in this area.

“He strongly believes and practises evidence-based chiropractic care and to achieve that, he is truly committed to a multi-disciplinary clinical setting, which fosters intra and inter-professional collaboration to ensure the best care for his patients,” according to his biography on the Port Hope Sports and Rehabilitation Centre website.

During his upcoming session, as is standard within the PACE Talk format, questions from the audience are welcomed. These questions may be submitted in advance by emailing mbhargava@imcare.ca prior to the talk, or time permitting, be posed live during the event itself.

Since 2018, Northumberland PACE partners — Northumberland Hills Hospital, the Northumberland Family Health Team, the Community Health Centres of Northumberland, internal medicine specialists IMCare, the Ontario Health Team of Northumberland, and local patients and caregivers — have been hosting free PACE (Personalized Assessment and Change Education) talks and have consistently drawn large groups of community members with a variety of questions and perspectives.

PACE talk topics are developed in a variety of ways. All of the subjects are typically tied to the areas of health and wellness, organizers told kawarthaNOW. Previous talks this year have including hearing health, organ and tissue donation, and the impact of homelessness.

Lasting an hour in length, each PACE talk consists of a 30-minute talk from a guest speaker with a 20-minute question-and-answer period and a short moderator summary.

Advance registration is required, with space limited to the first 300 registered attendees. The event is hosted through Zoom, and attendees are asked to log in to the event five minutes prior to its start time.

Register for “The Overall Effects of Posture on Health” at www.pacetalks.com. Recordings from many of the previous seasons’ talks are also available on the website.

Few know the value of the morning drop-in program at Peterborough’s Trinity Centre like Kristal Jones-Craighead, and that’s why she is hopeful that a newly launched fundraiser will mean the program can keep running for another year.

As the program’s coordinator, the Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough worker regularly sees, hears, and feels the many benefits of the program that’s offered on weekdays from 10:30 am to 1 p.m. at the Reid Street centre, which is operated by One City Peterborough for people who are unsheltered or marginalized.

Since January 2023, the morning drop-in program has done much to lessen the impact of the gap between One City’s overnight program and its afternoon program by providing a welcoming place for people from all walks of life — not just those living on the streets — to share a light breakfast and coffee, access a community clothing cupboard, harm reduction supplies, and washrooms and showers, and connect with housing outreach workers.

But the program’s real value, says Jones-Craighead, lies in the little things most of us take for granted; little things that mean the world to anyone who is struggling for whatever reason.

“The most important thing I do isn’t serving breakfast or opening the washrooms,” she explains. “It’s saying ‘Good morning. I’m so happy you’re here today. How are you?’ It’s letting folks know I’m happy to see them.”

“Healing and recovery doesn’t happen in isolation. It doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Folks need community. They need a place where they belong, where they’re not rushed along to the next spot, where they’re allowed to just be.”

According to Jones-Craighead, that kind of social support is critical for people who already face barriers to belonging.

“That rapport building, coming in and seeing workers that are supporting community, and being in community with each other, builds trust. Community members are then able to ask for more significant long-term support that will help them change their circumstances.”

In a 2023-24 progress report on the program she authored, Jones-Craighead noted the morning drop-in program had, at the time, been offered 428 days and served an average of 47 guests daily. A total of 19,688 meals had been served and housing outreach assistance had been accessed some 260 times.

Impressive, for sure, but it all comes with a cost — about $10,000 per month, according to Jones-Craighead.

On Monday (October 14), a new partnership between the Elizabeth Fry Society and Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes (PATH) was announced, the result being a $10,000 donation to the program. While that’s enough to keep the program going for another month, until the end of November, more funds are needed to keep the program running beyond that.

As such, the Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough has also launched the “Dollars for Drop-In” fundraiser, with a target goal of raising $120,000 to fund the program for another 12 months beyond November. Donations are now being accepted online bit.ly/dollarsfordropin.

As optimistic as Jones-Craighead is that the goal will be reached — “I’m confident in the generosity of this community; I see it every day.” — she admits it can be a tough sell in the face of a disconcerting reality that sees many question any funding of such programs, regardless of the source of that funding.

“I believe that most people are genuinely good-hearted people who don’t want to see folks in these circumstances,” she says. “They’re frustrated because it doesn’t seem that there are any easy answers.”

“But without being too harsh, I can’t help a corpse recover. I can’t put somebody who’s not alive through a treatment program. We’re in a crisis and the service we’re providing is a response to it.”

“I tend to ask people ‘What would you do? What would you like to have done if it’s a family member who’s struggling? If it’s a neighbour who’s struggling? If it’s someone who taught you in school or fought in a war for your freedom, or a nurse who has helped you at the hospital?’ Those are the people struggling who are coming through our doors.”

PATH’s $10,000 donation doesn’t mark that organization’s first assistance to the morning drop-in program. It continues to provide clothing to those who access the program via its Clothing and Essential Item Hub location at 385 Lansdowne Street East.

In addition, the morning drop-in program was boosted in a big way in 2023 by the United Way of Peterborough and District that provided $75,000 in funding from its Innovation Fund. Other partners have included the Peterborough AIDS Resource Network (PARN) and the Peterborough Family Health Team.

While grateful for any and all support that has come the program’s way, Jones-Craighead points out the program’s hand-to-mouth existence is as frustrating as it is worrisome. To counter that, she keeps positives well in mind to buoy her spirits.

“Wayne, our coffee master, volunteers every single morning, five days a week,” Jones-Craighead says. “He makes coffee, he sets up tables and he does dishes. He’s experiencing homelessness and the impacts of the housing crisis, and yet he comes every day. It was his birthday recently and I said ‘Wayne, take the day off’ and he said ‘This is where I want to be.’ That’s the stuff that keeps me pushing through.”

“I also look at what has been accomplished — amazing work is being done in this community. I have the radical audacity to believe that the goodness of folks is going come through and we’re going to get this done. It’s not like I go home at the end of my day and think ‘Well, I’ve just done all the work there is to do and I can put my feet up and feel good about it.’ I try to refocus my scope to ‘I’ve done enough for today, and tomorrow we’ll try again.'”

“Ideally, I’d like to be out of a job because there is no need to respond to. I am worried the need is going to continue beyond my capacity, or beyond the capacity of the building of community partnerships. We’re just crisis response here, trying to create a hub that supports as many folks as we can, but there are a lot of folks we’re not reaching.”

When all is said and done, the Dollars for Drop-In appeal, says Jones-Craighead, must hit its goal for the morning drop-in program to continue for at least a year.

“We’ve got to have folks there to operate the program, and we need a bit of a budget for food,” she says, adding “We run on a shoestring. It is pretty impressive what we’re able to do. We’re helping as many as 47 to 50 people per day. In the winter, we’ll see that go up to 60 to 70 per day.”

“If we don’t have the funds, those services will have to stop. We’ll then work to provide the community and our partners with as much notice as possible, because the impact will be surely felt throughout the entire city.”

As for what that impact may be, Jones-Craighead is blunt in her assessment.

“Unfortunately, it will come at the cost of folks’ well-being,” she says. “Heaven forbid it doesn’t result in loss of life, but we know when there are hours in between (available programs) and people are left in the cold, things don’t always go well.”

This story has been updated to correct Kristal Jones-Craighead’s title from “social worker”. She is a graduate of the Social Service Worker program at Fleming College.

A 15-foot horse statue will be visiting three hospitals in the Kawarthas region on Wednesday (October 16) as part of a province-wide protest by CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE) and the Ontario Health Coalition about the Ontario government’s use of privately owned clinics to deliver publicly funded health care services.

The statue — a replica of the Trojan horse from Greek mythology — will be at Campbellford Memorial Hospital at 9 a.m., Peterborough Regional Health Centre at 11:30 a.m., and Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay at 3 p.m. The statue already visited Northumberland Hills Hospital in Cobourg last Tuesday (October 8).

For those unfamiliar with the Trojan horse myth, the Greeks are said to have built a gigantic wooden house as a tribute to the city of Troy in an admission of defeat after an unsuccessful 10-year siege of the city during the legendary Trojan War in the 12th century B.C. The Greek army then pretended to sail away, and the jubilant Trojans pulled the wooden horse into their city as a victory trophy, unaware the Greeks had hidden a large group of warriors inside the horse. The Greeks then emerged from the wooden horse at night and opened the city gates for the rest of the Greek army to enter and destroy Troy, ending the war.

OCHU-CUPE is using the Trojan horse statue as a metaphor for the Ontario government’s plan to issue new licenses to for-profit clinics this fall.

“The Trojan Horse represents a gift, which, if accepted, threatens the recipient,” said OCHU-CUPE president Michael Hurley in a media release. “The false promise here is that privatizing surgeries is a solution to long waits.”

“In fact, privatization redirects money and staff from public hospitals to private, for-profit clinics. As a result, wait-times in the public system get longer as staff shortages lead to service closures. Meanwhile, these private clinics charge out-of-pocket costs, which are unaffordable for most people. Ultimately, they will reduce access based on need, lengthen wait times, and weaken our public hospital system.”

In January 2023, Ontario Premier Doug Ford first announced his government’s plan to move tens of thousands of publicly funded cataract surgeries, hip and knee replacements, MRIs, CT scans, colonoscopies, and endoscopies out of hospitals and into for-profit and not-for-profit community facilities.

“We aren’t accepting a status quo that leaves too many people waiting too long for care,” Ontario health minister Sylvia Jones said at the time, adding that such services would “always be paid for with your OHIP card, never a credit card.”

Ontario already has more than 900 private clinics, many predating the Ford government, that mainly provide publicly funded X-rays and other diagnostic services. Seven clinics currently provide MRI or CT scans or both. In 2023, four new clinics opened to provide cataract surgeries for around 14,000 patients who have been on waiting lists that grew during the pandemic. According to OCHU-CUPE, the province will be issuing new licenses this fall to private clinics and providing them with funding to perform 100,000 MRIs and CT scans.

Critics have argued that moving publicly funded health care services into for-profit clinics will result in the over-billing of patients as well as the “upselling” of patients to encourage them to pay out-of-pocket for add-on services (such as an upgraded lens in a cataract surgery), and will result in a lower standard of care as clinics process patients as quickly as possible and cut corners to maximize profit.

Hurley said a recent study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed that surgical rates for cataract surgeries went up by 22 per cent for the wealthiest people in Ontario while decreasing by nine per cent for the lowest income-earners.

According to an April report from the Ontario Health Coalition, private clinics are illegally billing patients up to $8,000 for medically necessary services in violation of the Canada Health Act.

“Private for-profit clinics and hospitals are up to two to three times more expensive than public hospitals,” said Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra in a media release.

“The Ford government is taking our public tax funding for health care away from our local hospitals to give it to more costly for-profit clinics. Even worse, for-profit clinics threaten public medicare and cause hardship for patients, charging the elderly on pensions thousands of dollars unlawfully for needed surgeries and manipulating them to pay for unnecessary add-ons.”

The Ontario Health Coalition and OCHU-CUPE, which represents about 50,000 hospital and long-term care workers in Ontario, are demanding the province invest more funds in public hospitals to improve staffing and capacity and allow hospitals to deliver needed services instead of private clinics.

“Ontario now funds our public hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada, with the lowest staffing levels and bed capacity across the country,” said OCHU-CUPE secretary-treasurer Sharon Richer. “Yet, the Ontario Conservatives are shifting more than a billion dollars per year away from our public hospitals to private for-profit clinics, hospitals and staffing agencies.”

“The solution is to add enough new hospital beds and staff over the next 10 years to meet the needs of an aging and growing population. The government must also close the loopholes that exempt some occupations from paying the health tax would generate more than enough revenue to offset these costs.”

Following the visits to hospitals in the Kawarthas, OCHU-CUPE and the Ontario Health Coalition will be continuing their Trojan horse tour to another 50 locations across Ontario until the end of November. The tour will also be in Minden and Haliburton on November 28.