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Focused Field Investigations for Sewer Condition Assessment with EPA SSOAP Toolbox
Citation:
Selvakumar, A. Focused Field Investigations for Sewer Condition Assessment with EPA SSOAP Toolbox. In Proceedings, No-Dig 2014, Orland0, FL, April 13 - 17, 2014. North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT), Liverpool, NY, ,, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
Aging water infrastructure is currently one of the top national water program priorities, and is one of the top priorities of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The Nation’s sanitary sewer infrastructure is aging, with some sewers dating back more than 100 years. A properly designed, operated and maintained sanitary sewer system is meant to collect and convey all of the sewage that flows into a wastewater treatment plant. However, occasional unintentional discharges of raw sewage from municipal sanitary sewers to streets, private property, basements and receiving waters—called sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs)—occur in many systems.
Description:
The Nation’s sanitary sewer infrastructure is aging, and is currently one of the top national water program priorities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the Sanitary Sewer Overflow Analysis and Planning (SSOAP) Toolbox to assist communities in developing SSO mitigation plans including sewer capacity and condition assessment. The SSOAP Toolbox contains a suite of integrated computer software tools. It can serve as the foundation of wastewater collection system assessment by analyzing monitored flow data to prioritize where to inspect for condition assessment, and to evaluate the performance of rehabilitation activities. The current state of technology for assessing the condition of sewer systems utilizes rather time consuming and expensive field investigations employing the conventional closed circuit television or newer emerging technologies (e.g., sonar, laser, ultrasonic, and infrared). The rainfall derived infiltration and inflow prediction methodology employed in the SSOAP Toolbox offers an effective and less costly means to design a focused condition assessment program and maximize the success of field investigation efforts. In this technical paper, the authors discuss how SSOAP fits into the overall asset management framework and highlights the use of SSOAP to design focused field investigation plans as part of a sanitary sewer condition assessment and subsequent rehabilitation evaluation.
