Addressing Problematic Sewer Laterals in the City of Baltimore: Program Implementation, Challenges, and Initial Findings

There are approximately 279,000 active sewer lateral connections (lateral) in the City of Baltimore (City). The City experiences an average 450 customer complaints related to sewer lateral backups per month, resulting in sewer service disruptions. Like many large cities with aging infrastructure and limited resources, problematic sewer laterals present a significant challenge to Baltimore. In order to deal with these problematic laterals more efficiently, the Office of Asset Management (OAM) under the City’s Department of Public Works developed the Sewer Lateral Inspection and Renewal Program. Initially, the Program would address a backlog of approximately 9,000 properties with a history of sewer lateral chokes. The backlog was prioritized using a condition and criticality model that was developed specifically for the Program. The model was designed to prioritize neighborhoods that contained the greatest concentration of affected properties in the backlog. Using this priority approach, the work was aggregated into 247 city neighborhoods to be inspected over a period of five years. Reviews of inspection videos determine which defective laterals are scheduled for open cut point repairs, replacements, CIPP lining, root control, or routine cleaning. The program is currently in its second year, and approximately 1,300 laterals have been inspected thus far, yielding 1,668 rehabilitation recommendations ranging from root control to complete lateral replacement. Key performance indicators for sewer lateral backups since the program started are showing a decreasing trend with a 10% improvement in calendar year 2015.