Problem: The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, maintains a collections system that includes 1,100 miles of sanitary sewer pipe and 385 miles of stormwater pipe. The age of the collections system varies with some segments over 100 years old. Like the vast majority of collections systems, Grand Rapids is challenged with wet weather events that result in I&I. In 2022, the city pivoted its approach and sought out a partner to take responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the monitoring network including hardware, software and data preparation. This enabled the city to focus solely on data analytics, thus embracing the data-as-a-service model.
Solution: Grand Rapids, through their services provider, ADS Environmental Services, now has 36 flowmeters and 10 rain gauges deployed in both their sanitary sewer and stormwater collections systems. In the stormwater system, the city looks at peak flows in wet weather and flows (possibly illicit) during dry weather. The systems are set up to acquire data at set intervals of every 5 minutes on an ongoing basis. Typically, data is transmitted once per day to cloud-based software where it is stored for viewing and analytics.
Result: The service provider’s in-depth monitoring experience provides assistance with determining monitoring locations and installation methods, assuring that the most relevant data is acquired. This has allowed city operations to refocus on projects and tasks utilizing their core capabilities. 800-633-7246; www.adsenv.com
