EXAMINING PROTOCOLS FOR IDENTIFYING SANITARY SEWER OVERFLOWS: A LOOK AHEAD

This paper presents the results of a study performed for the American Society of Civil Engineers under Cooperative Agreement #CX826097-01-0 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The objective of the project was to develop a guidance manual that evaluated existing protocols for identifying Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs).Twelve medium to large utilities, effective at practicing both proactive and reactive SSO identification and control measures, participated in this project. A comprehensive questionnaire was completed by each of the utilities. Included in the findings are not only the SSO identification methods used, but also an assessment of their effectiveness.The SSO identification protocols have been organized into three major categories; Hydraulic, Maintenance and Inspection, and Structural. The Hydraulic protocols involve modeling and techniques incorporating the use of flow monitoring data from the collection system. Maintenance and Inspection practices include the use of scheduled inspections, maintenance reviews, monitoring of receiving stream, customer observations, and event system notifications. Structural protocols are related to assessments of the pipe integrity through visual, physical sampling, and analytical methods.