2,600 km of wastewater network, 2,200 km of rainwater network and seventeen wastewater treatment plants… Each year, 55 million m3 of wastewater pass through the pipes of the sanitation network of the 37 municipalities of Toulouse Métropole. The map of this giant network now appears on the big screen of an office at the Ginestous water treatment plant in Toulouse, the nerve center of metropolitan sanitation and the largest infrastructure in the Adour Garonne basin in this area.

Since March, the delegate in charge of sanitation for Toulouse Métropole, Asteo, a subsidiary of the Suez group, has opened a “hypervision center” there called Atlas 360. Like that of the drinking water network included by Veolia in October, Suez centralized all the data there to manage and monitor the sewerage network in real time, 24 hours a day.

If a first room displays in large the network and the alerts detected by hundreds of sensors, other information has been centralized in these premises, starting with calls and requests for intervention from users and town halls. All these data allow the most precise possible control of the sanitation system. As in January, during the flood of the Garonne. A crisis PC was then activated. To the raw data of the network, including the odor sensors of Ginestous, are added the weather forecasts, which, using computer models, allow operators the possibility of anticipating events.

First of savings

“Water efficiency is the first of the savings to be made”, underlined here, on the occasion of the inauguration, Guillaume Choisy, general manager of the Adour Garonne water agency. While experts anticipate a 50% drop in the flow of the Garonne in 2050, “the performance of wastewater treatment plants” is an important issue. The control center is “a concentrate of technology and innovation”, insisted for his part Arnaud Bazire, president of Asteo and deputy general manager of Eau France Suez.

The new water and sanitation contracts for the Métropole, in force since 2020, include a series of investments. Robert Médina, vice-president of the Métropole, recalled that the new control tower would be returned free of charge at the end of the contract, in 2032, to the community.