The City of Cocoa, FL integrated the Sewer Line Rapid Assessment Tool (SL-RAT) in February of 2017 to proactively scan their 200 miles of collections system for blockages. By utilizing acoustic inspection technology to quickly understand blockage conditions, they’ve been able to focus expensive cleaning resources on areas that need to be cleaned. The SL-RAT has helped in the development of Cocoa’s condition-based preventative maintenance program. Chris Collier, field operations manager of Cocoa describes the SL-RAT as a “game-changer in terms of operations.”
The City of Grand Prairie Water Utilities Operations is responsible for maintaining 700 mile of wastewater collection system. In 2006, they were experiencing a yearly average of 65 SSOs. Through implementing assessment tools that comprehensively assess their system, the city has been able to drastically reduce overflows to eight events per year for 2015-2017. One tool that has been essential to establishing this condition-based maintenance approach is the SL-RAT, which is helping the city to quickly understand which lines need maintenance, while drastically reducing inspection costs.
We’re doing that to get a snapshot of the condition of the lines. It helps us detect overflow points that we’ve had problems with in the past, but additionally, we use them for lines that we are washing on a periodic basis, and it has lessedned the number of times we have to go out to those lines.
– Jim Siddall, Water Operations Manager, City of Grand Prairie Water Utilities Operations
