The Bradford Sanitary Authority has spent the past two years assessing both the sanitary and stormwater systems — cleaning, flushing and vacuuming, along with removing any debris.
“We’re 30% complete with the assessments for both systems,” Executive Director Steve Disney said on Tuesday.
After two years? The system is much larger than one might think.
“There’s 45 miles of sanitary mains and 35 miles of storm mains,” Disney said, explaining the sheer size of the system.
Once the mains, catch basins and manholes have been properly cleaned, the authority’s crew inserts a subsurface camera system into the main and records a video inspection of all subsurface assets, he explained.
“As we go, we’re repairing the urgent/critical areas as they come up, then, all other issues are ranked per criticality to be planned for future projects,” he said. “We’ve only found one buried catch basin so far, but we’ve found numerous buried manholes, mainly on the storm system, which we’re uncovering and utilizing as access points to clean, assess and flush the system. These will remain open.”
These underground lines tend to slow as the debris builds.
Disney said, “We basically find a lot of hard-packed debris that takes a considerable amount of time and water to flush and vacuum out.”
They frequently have to deal with litter in the storm system, too, he said.
“We do find cans, and all sorts of litter which is unfortunate. All this debris ends up as potential blockages,” he explained.
“The biggest issue so far has been the condition of the original galvanized pipe. We’re finding it didn’t hold up very well, especially the bottom of the pipe. In many cases the bottom has totally disintegrated,” Disney said.
He added, “I would like to point out that we’re doing a tremendous amount of work on these systems and we’re dedicated to fixing things the correct way when we find issues.”
Authority crew members have been certified through the Pipeline Assessment Certification Program utilizing NASSCO standards. NASSCO is the National Association of Sewer Service Companies. This certification trains personnel on the proper methods and terminology needed to consistently and uniformly evaluate the condition of buried assets.
Each asset (mains, catch basins, manholes, etc) receives an evaluation and conditional assessment ranging from excellent to very poor. Based on these ratings, the various assets are ranked and prioritized for future repairs or replacement if necessary. Those assets needing urgent attention are scheduled for repair/replacement immediately.
Since 2021, Sanitary assessments have been conducted on 74,853 feet of main lines, including 237 manholes. Stormwater assessments have been conducted on 54,175 feet, including 458 catch basins and 118 manholes.
Many of the system’s main lines, catch basins, and manholes are reaching the end of their lifecycle. It is anticipated that most will require repairs and in many cases, complete replacement over the next 25 years.
Disney explained, “Our crews are doing an outstanding job performing the evaluations, assessments and repairs. They take great pride in their work and want to do the best job they can for our community.”
