City of San José Sewer Capacity Planning: Moving Beyond the Master Plan

The City of San José, California (City) recently completed the collection system capacity element of its Sanitary Sewer Master Plan. The project included a major update and expansion of the City's hydraulic model and application of the model to identify capacity deficiencies in the system. The Master Plan identified approximately $175 million in needed improvements to address current and future sewer capacity needs.A key focus of the Master Planning effort was development of City staff skills in all aspects of model building, calibration, and capacity assessment. The City intends to continue to use and update the model for on-going capital improvement program (CIP) project support, development reviews, and additional studies as-needed, and having in-house staff with the expertise to use the model will facilitate such work. In addition to presenting the basic approach the City takes to capacity planning, this paper specifically discusses aspects of the master planning effort that provided for City staff development and that will assist the City in continuing capacity planning work beyond completion of the Master Plan. This paper should be of interest to agencies who wish to plan for developing their own dedicated modeling staff to perform hydraulic modeling and capacity assessments on an on-going basis.