A sanitary sewer pumping station is a vital element of any community’s infrastructure and a critical component of the wastewater collection system. Pumping stations are built when sewage must be raised from a low point to a point of higher elevation or where the topography prevents downhill gravity flow. 

Different levels of O&M standards are necessary for large and small communities. Reactive maintenance methods involve crisis management and goals are often as simple as maintaining sewer flows inside the collection system. Preventive methods include scheduled maintenance and repairs throughout the system including all individual elements. Predictive management methods are an attempt to manage a system and its components based on historical data and its performance as it ages. 

Let’s look at how you can take your sewer maintenance program from reactive to preventive, more specifically with the sanitary sewer pumping stations. 

Getting started 

One of the biggest challenges to starting a preventive maintenance program is just that — getting started. Some of the hurdles municipalities face include: 

• Getting buy-in from management personnel and critical decision-makers
• Assessing the abilities of in-house personnel and equipment
• Evaluating contractors or supporting agencies
• Developing written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for maintenance activities
• Funding
• Follow-through from workers and management staff members 

One of the best starting points is with the U.S. EPA CMOM Program Self-Assessment Checklist, available on the EPA website. This is a relatively simple way to start your program and provides easy-to-follow checklists that can be modified or incorporated into a format your staff is comfortable with. If this is done collaboratively with management and operations staff members it should be easy to collect a great deal of information with minimal effort and will almost certainly generate discussion on how to move forward toward established goals. 

Knowledge pays off 

Experienced and knowledgeable operators who understand how and where to troubleshoot problems run our nation’s systems. Unfortunately, this knowledge and information is not always written down. Preparing a printed maintenance plan allows the capture and documentation of all those details as well as the institutional knowledge and experience that will be essential for operating a future maintenance program. 

Development of SOPs and checklist-style recordkeeping allows the collection system team to maintain a high level of service. Supervisors should periodically review maintenance activities and checklists to confirm the level of work meets SOPs. 

Pump station plan 

A pump station maintenance program should be based on two primary factors: the manufacturers’ recommendations and the pump station requirements. 

Operators and supervisors develop pump station requirements based on operational observations of the pump station and knowledge gained by experience of local conditions. For example, if FOG levels were high in a commercial area, then maintenance activities should be adapted to best accommodate real-time conditions in the field. 

A standard weekly pump station inspection should include observations and documentation of the following: 

• The components comprising the alarm system, wet well controller, telemetry and electrical system.
• The pumps: shafts, bearings, packing, seals, suction and discharge gauge pressures.
• The pump motors: temperature, amperage and voltage, coupling and alignment, vibration and noise. Oil levels and lubrication. Belt wear and tightness.
• Valves: check and pressure relief.
• Emergency generator or backup pumping equipment and appearances.
• Building and structure components including security, electrical, roofing and siding, ventilation system and lighting.
• Odor control devices and systems.
• Safety features such as confined-space entry equipment on site, air monitoring equipment, fire extinguishers, ladder, stairs or steps, emergency lighting and others. 

Additionally, operators should check the overall pump station and system calibration should be completed annually, which includes a drawdown test as well as a historical comparison of flow information and discharge head to see if the force main requires cleaning or maintenance, or the pumping systems have wear attributing to capacity reduction. 

A systematic operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation program is an essential element in the management of a sanitary sewer pumping station. Hopefully these tips will help put your municipality on the right track to success. 

About the Author
Matt Timberlake is vice president of Ted Berry Company, Inc., a municipal and industrial services and trenchless technologies company located in Livermore, Maine. Contact him at matt@tedberrycompany.com or www.tedberrycompany.com.