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| Sewer Asset Management Programme can help government agencies avoid the consequences of an infrastructure failure. Photo courtesy City of Winnipeg. |
By Brenda Lea Brown, UMA Group, Vancouver
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| Sewer Asset Management Programme can help government agencies avoid the consequences of an infrastructure failure. Photo courtesy City of Winnipeg. |
After decades of funding sewer infrastructure repair at a rate less than its deterioration rate and utilizing a management strategy that was geared more towards reacting to failure rather than precluding failure, the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba, approached UMA for an engineering solution that would show how to most effectively invest its shrinking asset management dollars.
The city of 660,000 boasts a subterranean network of some 3,500 kilometres of wastewater, combined, and storm sewers, much of it dating from the earliest part of this century. Although catastrophic failures occur infrequently, they can absorb a very large percentage of repair costs and seriously erode public confidence in system management. Yet repairing infrastructure at the wrong point in its deterioration cycle causes vast sums of money to be spent unnecessarily. In Winnipeg, as in most North American cities, investing the taxpayer's dollar in the most effective manner possible is clearly the order of the new millennium.
UMA responded with a comprehensive asset management strategy that combines sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, a system-wide sewer cleaning program, state-of-the-art sewer inspection data compilation techniques, sound economic principles, and a powerful database engine. Combine this with the political will to solve problems effectively and you have the making of a best management practice for sewer infrastructure management.
Key to successful implementation of the strategy is the Sewer Management System (SMS), a complex GIS database application with a very straightforward purpose: to continuously identify the most cost-effective rehabilitation strategy for the entire sewer system. What has to be fixed? What is the optimum time for repair? What are the direct and indirect cost consequences of failure? What is the potential impact of the failure on the public? What level of funding will be required to establish a sustainable infrastructure policy? SMS provides the basis to answer these and other key infrastructure management queries.
In 1998, 40 km of Winnipeg's sewer system was inspected and integrated into the SMS database. The detailed information from within the sewers was obtained by specially-trained technicians using remotely operated, high resolution, pan-and-tilt CCTV cameras. Another 100 km is scheduled for inspection in 1999. The remaining combined sewer infrastructure is recommended for inspection and evaluation over the next 10 years at a cost of approximately $30 million. As the program evolves, the SMS system continuously updates the most cost-effective rehabilitation approach for the overall system as well as defining the sustainable funding level that is required to maintain sewer infrastructure in the most cost-effective manner for the long term.