Developing Risk-Based Spending Programs for Pump Stations

The process for planning Seattle Public Utilities' (SPU) long-range pump station rehabilitation program is based on a methodology of minimizing the life-cycle cost of ownership. Balancing the cost from increasing risk of failure as the pump station assets age against the benefit of delaying capital expenditures results in an optimized and justified timing strategy for pump station rehabilitation. The consistent risk-based economic optimization provides a basis for prioritizing expenditures across asset classes.The methodology also supports real time repair versus replace decisions for failed assets, as well as pump station upgrade decisions based on capacity constraints and avoided overflows.