Brush Creek Neighborhood Sewer Rehabilitation

When the Kansas City Water Services Department set out to conduct a neighborhood sewer rehabilitation within the Brush Creek Basin, Benesch implemented a risk-based approach to evaluate system conditions and recommend improvements.

The scope of the rehabilitation included public sanitary sewers measuring 12 inches in diameter and smaller throughout the Brush Creek Basin—which spans east-west across the city. With $20 million in funding for the rehabilitation, ensuring those dollars were spent effectively was key.

Using a risk-based approach allowed the project team to identify the areas of highest need and those where failure would result in the largest disruption of service to city customers. By reviewing CCTV and manhole inspection data and conducting field investigations, the team was able to identify defects in the sewers and manholes and quantify structural deficiencies. In addition to this data review, smoke testing was completed along more than 430,000 linear feet of sewer lines within the project area.

All the collected data was reviewed to determine the likelihood of failure, which was then weighted against the consequences of that failure. These weighted comparisons allowed the team to assign a risk rating to each pipe and manhole within the system.

The risk ratings were then used to prioritize the team’s recommendations, which were developed to deliver the highest return on investment to the city for their sewer infrastructure. Individual projects resulting from the risk-based rankings include improvements to the Brush Creek Area 1 Basin combined sewer collection system.