Improving Wet Weather Flow Management at Water Resource Recovery Facilities: The Need for New Perspectives

As a result of increased regulatory and public pressures, municipalities are now being forced into better managing wet-weather related flows in their systems. For many water resource recovery facilities, this will require a significant increase in their processing capacity to adequately handle the excess flows resulting from wet weather events. However, existing regulatory frameworks and facility design approaches and operational strategies historically (and successfully) relied upon for the management of dry weather flow conditions are not necessarily suitable for this new challenge. A key differentiating factor lies in the difficult to predict, highly variable, and non-continuous nature of wet weather related flows and the much greater impact collection system operational practices have on treatment facilities. This paper argues for the need of establishing new perspectives and approaches by which our industry can identify and implement improvements aimed at managing wet weather flows while protecting public health and the environment in a more rational and sustainable manner.