San Juan Sanitary Sewer Field Investigations

The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority was required by the Environmental Protection Agency to asses the condition and determine how several mechanical and static regulators deviate wastewater from Puerto Nuevo WWTP sanitary sewer system to the storm sewer system during significant rain events. The Puerto Nuevo WWTP treats approximately 80 MGD of sanitary sewer, making it one of the largest wastewater treatment plant in Puerto Rico. As part of EPA’s requirements, PRASA needed to determine the route and discharge point of each combined sewer overflow. CH2MHILL commissioned ENTECH to perform an evaluation of the mechanical and static regulators, determine their configuration and establish their final discharge point. Because no sewer maps were available, ENTECH developed sewer maps for each of the facilities by performing a thorough investigation of each site. ENTECH’s field crews used various inspection methodologies including: visual inspections, dye testing, zoom camera inspection, smoke testing and CCTV inspection among others. Once the investigation was completed, ENTECH developed as-built drawings of each mechanical or static regulator and sewer maps depicting the discharge pipeline configuration. All the information collected during this project was documented and incorporated into PRASA’s GIS system.