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 Tech Talk
Are You Ready for SSO Enforcement?
The Clean Water Act prohibits, among other things, overflow “spills” of untreated sanitary wastes into our lakes and streams. The EPA is concerned that many sanitary sewer systems are inadequate and frequent spills of contaminated waste presents an unacceptable threat to public health.
Legislation has been proposed to enact enhanced rules on SSOs (Sanitary Sewer Overflows), and we should plan on them being inevitable. The compliance cost will be substantial if your sewer system is in poor condition. We suggest the following steps:
- Mapping. The first thing you need to do is know what you have in the ground. System maps should be accurate and up to date. The easiest method of checking pipe location is to use a pipe locator and a “sonde” that can be fastened to the end of a sewer rod and pushed into a pipe to transmit to the receiver above.
- Illegal Connections. In most sanitary sewer systems, the biggest contributors to excessive flow are downspout, sump pump, and area drains that have been connected by residents over the years. Smoke testing is the most efficient way of identifying these illegal connections.
- Pipe Condition. Unless your collection system is brand new, it is almost essential to do television inspection of the piping. You can expect to find broken pipes, leaking joints, protruding lateral connections, masses of roots, and possibly some other things that aren’t supposed to be there.
The sooner you find out what problems you have and establish an improvement program, the easier it will be when strict sewer enforcement begins.
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