Woolpert contracted for DeKalb County sanitary sewer inspection program

Atlanta — Woolpert was awarded a $5.6 million contract to assess, rehabilitate and reduce sanitary sewer overflows by the DeKalb County (Ga.) Department of Watershed Management. This project is being conducted through the Priority Areas Sewer Assessment and Rehabilitation Program (PASARP) and is part of a federal consent decree. DeKalb County is located on the east side of Metro Atlanta.

Eric MacDonald, Woolpert project director, said the contract includes performing sewer system evaluation surveys (SSES), gaining access to sewer lines, easement clearing and road building, locating and raising manholes to grade, and performing point repairs and cured-in-place pipe repairs to major defects located during the survey.

“For this project, we’ll employ some of the latest advances in technology for inspection,” MacDonald said, “including CCTV (Closed Circuit Television Inspection), sonar, 2D and 3D laser and pipe penetrating radar.”

Woolpert has been working on another project for DeKalb County, also as part of the consent decree, for the last three years. The national architecture, engineering and geospatial (AEG) firm is inspecting manholes and updating the county’s geographic information system (GIS).

Darren Eastall, consent decree administrator for DeKalb County, said the county has been so impressed with the quality of Woolpert’s work that it has been able to use the firm’s data to help facets of other departments.

“The level of inspection is so high that we can use that information to help other modeling programs; not just sewer mapping,” Eastall said. “That’s been an unexpected benefit. We knew we’d get great GIS info from Woolpert, but once we saw what inspections they were providing, we could see how that could apply to other departments.”

Woolpert’s initial field testing, inspection and surveying for the sanitary sewer rehabilitation began in January. The project is scheduled to be completed within two years.