{"id":532422,"date":"2024-06-28T22:31:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T22:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uat.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/?post_type=blog&p=532422"},"modified":"2025-04-07T22:19:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T22:19:24","slug":"innovation-leads-to-a-state-of-the-art-gis","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/innovation-leads-to-a-state-of-the-art-gis","title":{"rendered":"Innovation leads to a State-of-the-Art GIS for a Regional Sewer Utility"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a special place in Connecticut where a group of innovative and thoughtful engineers and planners have developed an organization that understands the community they serve, and the challenges associated with maintaining a healthy and safe environment. If a sewer system backs up or a flood event causes a network-wide disruption, the communities they serve are at risk.  The Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (GNHWPCA, or Authority) understands these concerns and has worked closely with its operations staff and contractors to develop inspection, analysis, and reporting tools that help plan, mitigate, and reduce risk as well as response times when unexpected events occur.<\/p>\n\n

The GNHWPCA is a regional water pollution control authority created in 2005 under Connecticut General Statutes Title 22A, Environmental Protection. The GNHWPCA was created to operate and maintain the wastewater system of the constituent municipalities, City of New Haven, Town of Hamden, Town of East Haven and Town of Woodbridge. <\/p>\n\n

Out of the four constituent municipalities, the City of New Haven is the only combined sewer system (CSS), a wastewater collection system designed to carry sanitary sewer wastewater and stormwater runoff in a single pipe to a treatment facility. In periods of heavy rainfall, total wastewater flows can exceed the capacity of the collection system and treatment facilities. When this occurs, the CSS is designed to overflow directly to surface water bodies such as rivers or coastal waters. These overflows are called combined sewer overflows (CSO). In 2001, prior to regionalization, the City of New Haven published its comprehensive CSO long term control plan as part of its requirements to comply with EPA\u2019s Clean Water Act mandates. The long-term control plan included developing its GIS database to assist in the creation of the combined sewer system computer hydraulic model, and to perform pipe risk assessments to prioritize inspections and plan future rehabilitation projects. This was a good opportunity for the team of engineers, plant operators, construction, and finance professionals to combine forces and work toward the management of a common system that could be used to track the location and condition of all sewer utility assets. <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Senior engineer and GIS manager, Ricardo Ceballos, uses ArcGIS Pro to assess a proposed extension of sewer infrastructure.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Building a System of Record for Sewer Utility Assets<\/h2>\n\n

The Authority requested proposals from GIS consultants and hired an Esri business partner to help centralize its GIS data into a common Geodatabase. Langan Engineering and Environmental Services LLC<\/a> (Langan) was awarded the contract and continues to serve the GNHWPCA to this day. Senior engineer and GIS manager, Ricardo Ceballos, stated the goal was bringing in a partner that was highly responsive and was consistently up to date with the latest ArcGIS technologies used for stormwater and sewer utilities. <\/p>\n\n

Today, the GNHWPCA engineering department utilizes ArcGIS to manage 600+ miles of sewer mains in its service area, and links to other helpful data feeds and sources like video captures from CCTV cameras used to inspect the inside of pipes and maintenance records.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe flexibility of Esri\u2019s configurable web application tools like Web App Builder and now its successor, Experience Builder, along with ArcGIS Dashboards have dramatically reduced the time it takes for us to provide GNHWPCA with helpful decision support maps and apps.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> — Tony Yates, Associate Principal\/VP, Langan<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Another important factor for Ceballos and the GNHWPCA team was having a partner that was willing to invest time understanding the GNHWPCA short and long-term goals. These goals included for example thinking ahead about how to plan for major flooding and overflow events or more immediate needs like responding quickly and effectively to Call-Before-You-Dig (CBYD) 811 calls for utility locate services or reporting unplanned events like accidental line breaks.\u00a0 And like many communities, new construction and growth of residential homes and businesses alike requires proper planning for increased sewer flows as well as capital planning and budgeting for the addition of new sewer infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n

Maps and Apps Make an Impact<\/h2>\n\n

The team has made steady progress over the years and today the ArcGIS system is serving the needs of a wide group of users.  A variety of web and mobile applications are used to monitor and maintain the health of the regional sewer system and integrated utility network.<\/p>\n\n

Examples of these applications and the users supported include:<\/p>\n\n