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On January 23, 2008, ALCOSAN entered into a Consent Decree (CD) with the U.S. Department of Justice that calls for the submittal of a Wet Weather Plan (WWP) to the regulatory agencies [the United States Environmental Agency (U.S. EPA), the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PaDEP), the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD)] by January 30, 2013. The plan must propose technical...

The purpose of the Project was to relocate the existing River Trunk pipelines away from the Tuolumne River floodplain and improve the resiliency and reliability of the system. [b]Benefits of Project[/b] This completion of this project will provide the City of Modesto with redundancy in their system that will reduce the risk of future failures and provide the City with options to manage flows in this part of the system. Unique design and operational elements will be described that can provide lessons learned for other utilities faced with similar challenges.

This paper describes a $70-million project that will deepen a critical 30-year old 54-inch collection system sewer force main below the shipping channel of the Port of Miami. The impetus for this project is the deepening of the Panama Canal, which will ultimately result in larger, “Post-Panamax” ships engaged in commerce, hence requiring deeper ports. The project consists of lowering...

Many municipalities are investing significant resources to the development and implementation of Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSO) elimination programs. Successful programs employ a variety of evaluation, planning, design, and implementation tools, including collection system flow monitoring and hydraulic models developed and calibrated using actual flow data. These models are often used to comply...

The design objectives for this project were to utilize hydraulic modeling to confirm design assumptions and optimize operational characteristics for a 180 million gallon per day (mgd) (681,300 cubic meter per day) state-of-the-art pump station operating in a high volume rock laden raw sewage environment. Operational objectives were to incorporate the operation of the full-scale pump station with...

The Hudson River flows generally southward approximately 315 miles from its source at Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds on Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains to the Battery in New York City. The Hudson River valley is rich with history. The initial exposure of many schoolchildren to stories of the Hudson is to tales of the Dutch explorer Henry Hudson's voyage in search of the Northeast Passage to the...

Grit removal technologies were reviewed and retrofitting detritus tanks with vortex tanks in place was selected as the best approach among all possible alternatives. Jet grouting was used for excavation and underpinning of the existing building foundation and created a seepage barrier to address the site high groundwater levels. Low headroom drilling equipment was selected due to the clearance...

The State of Michigan passed legislation in 2012 to fund asset management planning. The legislation allowed the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to create a 450 million grant program. The Stormwater, Asset Management, and Wastewater (SAW) Grant program allows for system-wide inventory enhancements, structural condition assessments, and capacity evaluations of wastewater and...

The City of Hamilton is faced with increasing pressure from growth and development, greater wet weather treatment needs, and stringent effluent targets. In order to address these challenges, the City of Hamilton has initiated an ambitious program to identify alternative upgrade options for the Woodward Avenue WWTP. One of the alternatives identified for further investigation is a tertiary...

Raftelis Financial Consultants, Inc. (RFC), in conjunction with the American Water Works Association (AWWA), conducts a biennial water and wastewater rate survey (Survey). There are a number of preliminary findings from the Survey, including:

The City of Boulder, Colorado 75th St. WWTP (Boulder WWTP) was recently converted from a trickling filter/solids contact (TF/SC) process to a biological nutrient removal (BNR) activated sludge (A/S) process with dissolved air flotation thickeners (DAFTs) for secondary sludge thickening prior to digestion. One challenge during construction was switching from an existing operation of sludge...