Ontario Clean Technology Alliance Touts $60 Million Consortium
The organization's chair says the goal is make Ontario, CN "the place where the world buys its water management technology."
Members of the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance presented the $60 million Southern Ontario Water Consortium (SOWC) platform on Oct. 1 at WEFTEC 2012, the big water quality conference New Orleans. The platform welcomes international companies interested in testing technologies in a real watershed or municipal environment and companies looking for collaborative R&D with water researchers from eight universities. IBM Canada already has invested $20 million of technology into it.
Jennifer Patterson, senior business development consultant with Hamilton Economic Development and chair of the alliance, is attending the event.
The consortium is an R&D platform for new water technologies and facilities for the testing and development of drinking water solutions, wastewater purification, eco-toxicological analysis, watershed management, and sensor development. Intended to be fully operational by 2014, the SOWC platform includes a series of facilities within the Grand River watershed, the Mimico Creek sub-watershed near Toronto, the City of London Greenway Wastewater Treatment Centre, the City of Guelph Waste Water Treatment Centre, the Sensor Development Labs at McMaster University, drinking water treatment labs at the Universities of Toronto and Waterloo, eco-toxicological labs and staging facilities at Laurier, and groundwater research facilities at Base Borden and the University of Guelph.
"We are looking for more companies that want to grow with us in Ontario," said Patterson. "We want to be the place where the world buys its water management technology. The Ontario government has adopted an economic growth strategy, backed by a comprehensive series of legislative, regulatory, and policy initiatives that is designed specifically to support the expansion of clean, green industries, including water."