Alpena Township approves $14,495 water SCADA upgrade
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ALPENA - The Alpena Township Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday to approve a $14,495 upgrade of cellular equipment on its water-system control network, a month after tabling the same quote to gather more information.
The work will be done by UIS SCADA Inc. of Dexter, under a quote dated Aug. 5 and included in this month's board packet. UIS is Utilities Instrumentation Service, a Michigan firm that installs industrial monitoring systems. SCADA, or supervisory control and data acquisition, is the software and cellular network that lets operators watch pumps, tanks and sewer stations from a computer instead of driving to every site.
Small industrial computers called programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, sit at wells, booster stations and lift stations. They send tank levels, pump status and alarms over cellular modems. In some places the same link can also change settings, such as how hard a booster pump should run.
Township Clerk Michele Palevich said last month's delay drew a visit from federal investigators.
"The Federal Bureau of Investigations found out we tabled the quote and came in and spoke with us," Palevich said. "There is a grant that became available September 14, and Supervisor Kaszubowski will be applying for it."
The FBI is the nation's lead federal law-enforcement agency on cybercrime.
Trustee Russ Rhynard asked whether the board still needed to act on the equipment quote.
"We need to act on it because our system is vulnerable," Palevich said.
Palevich moved to approve the upgrade as presented in the quote. Treasurer Hilary Gilleand supported the motion. Every board member voted yes.
Township Supervisor Abbi Kaszubowski said the township is also seeking a separate review of its computer and control systems.
"We are applying for the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program," Kaszubowski said. "The grant would allow for a security analysis of our entire system including the SCADA and prepare a report that we could present to the Board of Trustees with recommendations. There is no cost for this service."
That federal grant, administered through the states, helps local governments assess and harden their networks. It would not replace Monday's equipment vote.
The packet includes the Aug. 5 UIS quote from estimator Ken Wesley, addressed to Catherine Winn of F&V Operations and Resource Management. It covers 15 Pepwave 4G cellular modems with firewall functions and IP whitelisting (meaning only approved computer addresses can reach the remote PLC connections), plus a new antenna and cables for each modem, programming and startup services. The total is $14,495.
Also in the packet is a July 29 letter from Brian Davis, UIS SCADA's IT director, telling customers a cybersecurity incident occurred Monday, July 27, and involved PLCs. Davis wrote that UIS had confirmed a response plan with federal and local cyber authorities and that protections supporting customer systems must be upgraded.
Davis said UIS would limit communication through customer modems to help prevent unauthorized access to PLC networks. Not all equipment in service can support the new measures, he wrote, and some hardware will need to be replaced.
In August, trustees tabled the quote until September so they could gather more information.
"Following the recent cyberattack, updating the SCADA system is essential to close known vulnerabilities, strengthen defenses, and prevent a similar disruption from happening again," Kaszubowski said last month.
Monday's vote authorizes the $14,495 modem and antenna replacement. The grant Kaszubowski is seeking, if awarded, would pay for a no-cost security analysis of the township's full system, including SCADA, and a report with later recommendations.
Alpena Township Trustee Steve Lappan was not present for the meeting and did not participate in the vote.