Smart Sewers: A Change Catalyst for Real Time Control Facilities

MSDGC's collection system has four satellite, unstaffed real-time control facilities (RTCs) commissioned between 2008 and 2010 as part of the consent decree stipulations. These in-line storage facilities were designed to maximize the use of existing infrastructure for storage and conveyance of wet weather flow to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to reduce the volume and frequency of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) by hundreds of millions of gallons (MG) annually. However, their remote location and unstaffed, intermittent operation under harsh wet weather conditions present operations and maintenance (O&M) challenges. Until a few years ago, they lacked remote visibility for detecting failures and analytical tools to uncover and address deficiencies. These challenges were eroding their effectiveness over time. In part, to address these challenges, MSDGC implemented a Smart Sewers program – an innovative cloud-based remote monitoring and control system dedicated to wet weather operations including that of RTCs. It uses sensors throughout the collection system, a remote monitoring platform for visualizing information, and data storage and analytics to optimize collection system operation. This paper shares ways in which MSDGC's Smart Sewers program has addressed many of the challenges associated with remote, unstaffed RTC facilities, served as a catalyst for change for these facilities, and made them more resilient. Lessons learned from the four facilities highlighted in this paper were incorporated into the design of two new RTC facilities – the Bloody Run RTC and the Wooden Shoe RTC that came on line in 2019 and 2020 respectively.