Industrial and commercial dewatering is a widely used across manufacturing, mining, and wastewater treatment to drastically reduce waste volume, minimizes disposal costs, and more.
This article will cover commercial dewatering in Canada, its methods, costs, and the top companies that are available for this service for businesses.
What is dewatering?
Industrial dewatering is when you separate liquids from solid materials or sludge. It is used widely across industry and commercia processes, such as manufacturing, mining, and wastewater as examples, to drastically reduce waste volume, minimize disposal costs, and to recover valuable byproducts before the materials are continued on to be transported or discharged.
Methods, permits, pricing, & risks
The methods and technologies that make dewatering work are to maximize volume reduction using specialized mechanical equipment. The main three key methods are:
- Centrifugation: Using a high speed rotation, it separates solid and liquid components based on their density.
- Filter presses: As the name suggests, it compresses sludge using heavy plates to squeeze out moisture to turn the end result into a dry solid pressed “cake” shape.
- Screw presses: Screw presses use a rotating screw to continuously drain liquid through a screen. This method is highly valued as it is the most energy efficient.
The primary applications and uses for dewatering for industrial/commercial settings are put into three main categories such as sludge management, surface and/or groundwater control, and manufacturing/refining. Sludge management extracts excess water from biological or chemical sludge produced in wastewater plants, making the remaining solid waste lighter and cheaper to transport.
Surface and groundwater control will drain water from construction sites, mine shafts, and excavation pits to stabilize soil and create dry, safe working conditions. And manufacturing and refining will remove moisture and residual liquid from industrial parts (such as machined metal) to prevent things like corrosion, oxidation, or to prepare them for painting and coating, as an example.
Top Dewatering Companies in Canada
Aquatech Dewatering
Features
Aquatech is the industry-leading provider of full-service dewatering, bypass pumping, and water filtration & treatment solutions. They are Canada’s leading provider of complex fluid and treatment solutions, specializing in water treatment and filtration, bypass pumping, dewatering, and engineering services across construction, mining, transit, municipal, industrial, and environmental sectors. Since 2006, they’ve bridged the gap between tightening environmental regulations and real-world constructability through deep hydrogeological expertise and advanced pumping and treatment technologies.
From early hydrogeological assessments and system design to turnkey solutions and monitoring, they support every phase of your project with engineered certainty. Backed by nearly two decades of experience, an innovative culture, and a proven record on some of the country’s largest projects, they can get the job done well.
Stormtec
Features
Wellpoint and deep well systems, whether you require a shallow or deep dewatering solution, StormTec has a full range of equipment to safely lower the water table and provide a dry excavation. With experience in deep excavations, shallow trenching, and broad area-wide applications, they can support your team in any capacity.
DEEP WELL DEWATERING
Custom well packages for sale or rent.
Design and engineering support.
Integrated planning with site water treatment.
Permit and regulatory guidance.
WELL-POINT DEWATERING
Single-stage and multi-stage systems.
Bulk excavation or shallow civil excavations.
6” to 8” vacuum pumps.
24/7 service support.
Design and installation of site-wide custom dewatering solutions for sale or rent.
ICD Group Ltd
Features
Global Pump through the OCD group produces superior pumps that can be employed on various projects, including emergency flood control, construction, dewatering, industrial applications, and more. Global Pump models are designed with state-of-the-art enclosed impellers that ensure high efficiencies (fuel savings) and extended component life due to lower wear rates.
Unlike competitor pumps, these factors provide savings that allow our pumps to pay for themselves. They also supply water pumps, slurry pumps, other pumps and pumping solutions.
NCS Fluid Systems
Features
NCS Fluid handling Systems is one of the leading dewatering contractors across Canada, including the territories, and also into the United States. Providing a wide variety dewatering allows the team at NCS Fluid Handling Systems to remain the best choice for dewatering without limitations and when combined with our sediment control business unit and water treatment options NCS Fluid Handling Systems continues to be the best solution for your full-service dewatering contractor and project support.
Well-point Dewatering is just part of the goal, soil stabilization is also part of the objective.
Canadian Dewatering
Features
Canadian Dewatering’s head office and branch operations are located in Edmonton, AB and is home to the company’s largest maintenance facility. It serves as a central hub supporting all other branch locations across western Canada. With a dedicated team of long term employes, they are highly rated for good reason. They work across the western provinces and up into the territories as well, with multiple facilities to expedite operations.
They offer the most comprehensive fluid management services in western and northern Canada and are experts in contract dewatering, with over forty years of experience that have the knowledge and equipment to collect and remove it correctly, all while working with you to ensure that what you need will be done efficiently and effectively. They know how to implement the right solution for a given problem, whether its rain accumulation or hydraulic ground water intrusion, they can do multiple types of dewatering services.
KBL
Features
KBL delivers advanced dredging and dewatering solutions across Western and Northern Canada, supporting industrial, municipal, and mining clients in meeting regulatory demands, extending pond lifespan, and improving site performance. Whether managing tailings, lagoons, or stormwater infrastructure, their services are designed to reduce liabilities, control costs, and maximize capacity. They tailor their services to meet the unique requirements of each facility, ensuring full compliance with water and sludge management regulations. Their customized solutions are designed to maximize productivity, offering a variety of options to ensure the most cost-effective approach that works with what you need.
KBL’s expertise in dewatering efficiently removes excess water from substrates, helping to accelerate your project timelines in a safe and effective manner and they reduce costs through innovative strategies and advanced dewatering systems. They offer tailored dewatering solutions offering valuable insights that empower you to make informed decision and maximize overall efficiency.
Tailoring their dewatering solutions makes it easy to get the processes done that you may need for your business, and within the budget that you need as they utilize advanced dewatering techniques, including efficient decanter centrifuge dewatering for rapid and effective water extraction. Their end-to-end approach integrates state of the art systems into overall project plans, and KBL’s seamless operation quickly reduces residuals, ensures reliable performance, reduces costs, and allows businesses to meet goals.
Why does dewatering matter for infrastructure?
Dewatering matters for infrastructure in a commercial and/or industrial setting as everything is affected by weather, how the groundwater is, mining, excavation challenges, and more – including temporary vs permanent dewatering, depending on your setup or how you want your business to be set. It is important and could be essential for infrastructure projects as it helps to control groundwater, prevents soil liquefaction and maintain the stability of excavation walls. Removing as much water as possible, minimizing excess water ensures the structural integrity of deep foundations, protects crews by creating a dry workspace that they don’t have to worry about, and it helps to prevent costly delays by having the dry area.
Industrial dewatering protects infrastructure for a few critical reasons:
- Soil stability and structural integrity. Excavating below the water table can turn the ground into unstable and waterlogged mud. Dewatering reduces pore water pressure and lowers the water table, preventing issues such as trench collapses, soil erosion, and anything like heavy machinery sinking into the muddy ground.
- Foundation Protection. Uncontrolled groundwater can exert high upward hydrostatic pressure under deep foundations. Properly managing this pressure can help to avoid structural shifting, cracking, and water intrusion (like basement flooding as an example) over the structure’s lifespan.
- Project efficiency. This may seem like common sense, but it can be overlooked quite often. Attempting to build, construct, or pour concrete into a flooded, muddy trench area will slow down timelines and damage equipment. Not to mention the time sink and the way that it keeps projects on schedule.
- Environmental compliance. In areas such as in Edmonton, AB for example, dewatering is heavily regulated to protect local watersheds. Managed dewatering incorporates filtration and treatment systems to prevent sediment, turbidity, and pollutants from enterting local streams and storm systems. Depending on where you live, you can typically consult local municipal environmental guidelines for specific groundwater and soil management interactions.
Dewatering Methods
Selecting the right dewatering method for your project is important as it will depend on specific soil types, site permeability, excavation depth, and the required rate of water removal. The different types of dewatering are wellpoints, sump pumping, deep wells, eductor systems, and vacuum based dewatering.
Open Sump Pumping
This is best for shallow excavations with permeable soils such as sand or gravel, and with minimal water volumes to move. These are highly cost-effective and easy to install. This is considered one of the most economical methods that works by allowing water to seep into the excavation and collect it strategically through dug sumps or pits.
The cons of this are that it can increase the risk of soil erosion or excavation collapse.
Wellpoint systems
This method creates a stable dry area by installing a series of small diameter wells (hence wellpoints) closely spaced around the excavation area. These wellpoints are connected to a central, centrifugal header pipe powered by a vacuum pump to continuously draw water out of the soil.
This is best for shallow excavations and the pros are that its very effective at stabilizing trench excavations and relatively easy to install.
Deep well systems
These are, as the name suggests, best for deeper projects where high-capacity pumping is needed. Deep wells are drilled around the perimeter of the excavation and heavy duty submersible pumps are placed in each shaft to lower the local water table. This is best for deep excvations, porous rock, and oil that has high permeability. Space constrained sites can benefit from this as well, since the wells can be placed further from the active work area.
A con is that it can be more expensive to drill and set up compared to regular sump pump installation and work.
Eductor Systems
Instead of using vacuum system from the surface, eductor (or ejector) systems use a high-pressure water supply sent down into individual wells to create a localized vacuum. This vacuum draws the groundwater out and expels it to the surface. A ig pro for this is that there is no practical limit on the depth of the drawdown since it can be used in multiple stages. A con is that they can be highly complex to set up and maintain.
Pros and Cons of dewatering systems
Pros and cons of the dewatering systems are typically as mentioned above.
Pros:
- Improved soil stability.
- Enhanced worker safety that reduces slip hazards and protects from trench failures.
- Equipment protection. It keeps machinery, raw materials, and foundations dry, preventing water damage and rust.
- In wastewater and sludge management, dewatering drastically decreases waste volume, cutting handling, and disposal costs, this helps with volume reduction.
Cons:
- High operational costs. Setting up and powering systems can be highly expensive.
- Environmental and regulatory risks. Discharging pumped groundwater or managing sludge requires strict regulatory compliance to avoid environmental violations or fines.
- Site hazards. Heavy pumping equipment introduces risks such as electric shock, lifiting failures, and falling objects.
What to look for in choosing a dewatering company
When looking for a dewatering company, it’s good to prioritize those that offer turnkey solutions such as combining site assessment, equipment, and regulatory compliances. Experience, history, certifications, monitoring capabilities and more all should be taken into account.
Some questions that you may want to ask before choosing a dewatering company could be along the lines of asking which dewatering methods they use or specialize in, project specific timelines and if they line up with what you need, site environmental regulations, and a breakdown of costs should be easily available as you converse with them.
