ADVANCED INFORMATION TRACKING – A MERGE BETWEEN GIS, THE INTERNET, AND EPASWMM

As of March 1, 2003, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) required that all communities in the Southeast Michigan region use what is referred to as the Part 41 tracking permit application for any proposed sewerage facility. This revised permit application requires communities to periodically measure, update, and track capacities in their systems and, consequently, prove to the MDEQ that adequate capacity is available to transport projected flows from each new development to the outlet. A new tracking tool is introduced in this paper in an effort to help municipalities manage potentially voluminous amount of data for record keeping, permitting, and reporting purposes. This tool merges GIS technology (for communities having spatial data) with easy to use database features along with advanced hydraulic modeling capability in one single, web base driven interface. Hydraulic modeling of the sanitary sewer system is accomplished with the numerical engine of the latest, publicly available EPASWMM modeling application (EPASWMM v. 5.0.005). Merging database, GIS, and modeling applications into a web based tool enables a community to take advantage of these technologies without needing to either locally host or be proficient with these applications.