Sanitary Sewer Overflow Elimination- The Long Hard Road to Success

After 20 long years and spending over 250 million, the City of Fayetteville has managed to eliminate Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs) from wet weather events up to 5 year storms. In 1989, the City experienced over 1,600 SSOs, some with volumes in the millions or tens of millions of gallons. Now, the City has very few SSOs, with an average volume of less than 100 gallons, generally caused by roots or some other pipe blockage. This enormous improvement makes the City's program one of the most successful in the country. This paper tracks the 20 year program, identifying major work components, and lessons learned, in the battle to eliminate SSOs. It also identifies the plan to eliminate all newly identified SSOs, no matter what the cause.