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Sewer utilities undertake a wide variety of programs to upgrade and extend the overall integrity and useful life of their sanitary sewer systems.
For nearly fifty years, utilities have been relying on CCTV inspection for both initial and post-rehabilitation investigation, relying almost entirely on visual observations. The Electro Scan process changes everything. Now, utilities can insert an electronic probe emitting an advanced tri-encoder array to systematically locate, determine, and quantify pipe defects and leaks.
Whether used as part of your Sanitary Sewer evaluation Studies (SSES) or to certify grouting, repair, and pipe lining projects, Electro Scan has become the preferred choice by leading sewer agencies, contractors, and engineering firms to find and fix problem sewers.
Remember when you posted flags on a wall map to highlight your critical pipes? Then, there were so many flags on the map, you either ran out of flags or didn’t have any room to fit more flags. Some utilities invested heavily to map their sewer mains, service connections, laterals, and property lines. But, without the data to tell you which pipe you should fix first, its a No-Win situation.
Remeber when the City of Houston, Texas televised their entire sewer system as part of the largest ever U.S. Public Works Sewer Inspection Project?
With over one hundred twenty (120) CCTV rigs on the project, it would have been a nightmare for each operator to record their CCTV inspections — unless of course Henry Gregory was representing the City of Houston, operating under an EPA Consent Decree, on the hook to report, weekly, to the EPA’s Region VI in Dallas.
Over 85,000 CCTV inspections were completed, including nearly 400,000 defect readings were recorded. In addition to CCTV inspections, the City completed inspections for every manhole, including smoke & dye flood testing and before & after flow monitoring.
Yet, the only space on the form to quantify Inflow and Infiltration was a single numerical ranking, observed visually, that would indicate a leak. No sewer laterals were inspected as part of the project, yet smoke testing revealed evidence of smoke on thousands of properties, not owned by the city.
It was one of the finest examples of conducting a comprehensive SSES, and CCTV inspection results, in some cases, would be replaced by more stingent evaluation criteria borrowed from the Water Research Centre (WRc) in Swinden, England, with the biggest weakness with its reliance on visual evidence of I&I (i.e. leaks).
Today, in many cities, more sewers are being re-lined as part of comprehensive sewer rehabilitation projects, than are being newly contstructed. Limited disruption in customer service, costly surface replacements, lower cost of installations from a variety of liner providers, and ease of installation.
Several years ago, a charter bus caved into a void, located in the parking lot of a famous Florida-based safari attraction. Although the storwater pipes had been installed just a few years before, every pipe in the park needed to be replaced — accomplished through a round-the-clock work schedule and never having to close the park. Ex-Navy frogmen navigated through the pipes to check for leaks, visually inspecting pipes that were, already, fully submerged.
Sanitary Sewer Evaluations Studies (SSES) have been an important foundation for mounting a strategic response to reducing Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs), Inflows, and Infiltration.
But, public works superintendents, managers, and appointed officials, are finding themselves swamped by a constant barrage of never ending data. Results from flow monitoring, field inspection tests, and hydraulic modeling, stack up on a daily basis, oftentimes contradicting known trouble spots and customer complaints; all together making it difficult to define grasp a clear picture of identifying a utility’s critical sewers.
Sound familiar?
Today, many utilities are taking a closer look at the data they are collecting, resulting in changes to longstanding business practices.
