The Town of Oakland, Maine has approximately 11.6 miles of gravity sewer piping, 52% of which is newer PVC pipe, with the remainder including a mix of clay, transite and fiberglass pipe.  With only 800 mostly residential customers, and limited budget for maintenance, the Town needed a means to prioritize the cleaning and CCTV inspection of the collection system piping.  Historically, the Town could only budget for 1 mile of cleaning and CCTV inspection at best. Since they do not own their own equipment, they must hire out all work, at great expense.

The SL-RAT program yielded two benefits. First, the inspection data showed that a small percentage – 15% – of pipes required follow up action. This helped Oakland meet their insurance due diligence requirements and direct their CCTV and cleaning resources to the correct pipe segments. Second, after completing a follow-up screening the next year, town management identified underlying larger pipe defects—such as root growth—that had caused certain segments to become rapidly clogged—even after a recent cleaning. Coupling these two benefits, the SL-RAT inspection program has realized over $51,000 in crew labor and financial savings, while reducing the risk of further sanitary sewer maintenance issues, sanitary sewer overflows, and customer backups.  The use of the SL-RAT has provided the town with a reliable, rapid, low cost method to assess their current collection system, and provide peace of mind that the system is functioning properly.