Grandview, MO

Since 2010, the City of Grandview has been engaged in an ongoing inflow and Infiltration (I&I) reduction program. Grandview has about 120 miles of separate sanitary sewer, mostly vitrified clay pipe built in the 1960’s and 70’s. At the time the City started their I&I elimination program in 2010, the Little Blue Valley Sewer District (which handles Grandview’s sewage treatment) had repeatedly expressed concerns regarding the amount of inflow of storm and ground water into the City’s sanitary sewer system and eventually into their treatment facilities. Besides the impact of these flows on their treatment capabilities, the high amount of flow meant additional cost to the City in terms of flow-volume fees to Little Blue Valley Sewer District.

Grandview retained a consulting firm to conduct I&I studies for the City and to prepare prioritized lists of improvements that the City could implement with the objective being to eliminate large amounts of inflow and infiltration. Mr. Fisher was the consulting Project Manager/ Engineer for this work and has continued in that position through our last contract in 2016. As Project Manager, Mr. Fisher established the I&I processes for our studies and then managed all the field data collection, data analysis and finally the development of GIS shape files and lists of prioritized improvements.

As part of Grandview’s I&I study Mr. Fisher managed all aspects of the projects from 2010 to 2016 including day to day operations. Tasks included:

• Manhole Inspections (1,081)
• Smoke Testing (249,681 lf)
• Flow Metering (17)
• San Sewer Cleaning & CCTV (498,482 lf)
• Manhole GPS (1,081)
• Flow data analysis
• Rehabilitation Recommendations
• CMOM updates
• Storm Sewer MSI (53,000 lf)
• Storm Sewer CCTV & Zoom Camera (8,000 lf)

Rehabilitation projects were developed to eliminate those spots in Basin 1-4 with the greatest amount of inflow and infiltration and have included a variety of fixes including pipe lining, dig-up repairs, and manhole lining and rebuilds. As a result of Mr. Fisher’s work, Grandview’s sanitary sewer system has experienced a significant reduction of inflow and infiltration and stabilized flow into the LBVSD treatment facility.

In late July of 2017 when the City experienced heavy rains and flooding, flows were compared to the amount of I&I experienced by Grandview’s system with that experienced by their neighbors, the City of Belton and the City of Lee’s Summit. Grandview found that while they still have inflow and infiltration, the amount and peaking characteristic are very compatible with those of our neighbors that both have newer facilities than Grandview.