Twenty-Four Years of Rehabilitation … Lessons Learned In Winning a Never-Ending War

Fayetteville, Arkansas, experienced over 1,500 sanitary sewer overflows (SSO) in 1989, resulting in an Administrative Order from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6. Over the following 24 years, the City experienced a painful and expensive process of denial, recognition of the SSO problem, in-house efforts to solve the problem, consultant assistance, evaluation, construction, evaluation, lessons learned, capacity improvements, evaluation, construction, evaluation, maintenance, evaluation, lessons learned, and the process continues today. Through these cycles of evaluation and work performed, numerous lessons have been learned that can assist other wastewater collection system owners and operators in their fight to eliminate and prevent SSOs. The solution- use every possible tool at your disposal, combining proven Sanitary Sewer Evaluation Study (SSES) techniques, 100+ year materials and construction methods, continuous system evaluation, education, Infiltration and Inflow (I/I) removal, capacity improvements, continuous vigilance, and constant hard work to fight the never-ending battle of SSO elimination prevention.