To facilitate and coordinate work required under consent orders for 83 communities, 3 Rivers Wet Weather, Inc., created a Program Management Team to enable technical resource sharing and reduce the cost of implementation. This non-profit organization has a mission of improving the quality of Allegheny County’s water resources by helping communities address untreated sewage and stormwater overflows into the region’s waterways. From December 2007 to July 2013, Wade Trim was part of the Program Management Team that helped the communities perform various tasks that included manhole and sewer system inspection, GPS and GIS mapping, sewer cleaning, CCTV, dye testing, sewer defect correction, flow monitoring, CSO and SSO alternative evaluations, and development of a feasibility study to address the municipal CSOs and SSOs. Data collected from this program will help form the basis for the planning and design of a potential $3 billion wet weather control program.
The Program Management Team utilized a work group format to bring the 83 communities together to address this regional challenge. A Flow Monitoring Work Group addressed the first major task of developing a process to install flow meters and collect data from the tributary area. A Flow Monitoring Implementation Team, comprised of work group members, oversaw detailed implementation. The team selected flow monitor locations, and oversaw data collection and interpretation of the data. A Feasibility Study Working Group facilitated inter-municipal coordination, development of local and regional alternatives, evaluation of inter-municipal cost sharing, and the development of Feasibility Studies. As a continuation to the Feasibility Study development, a comprehensive water quality monitoring plan was developed for three Pilot Watersheds within the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) Region. This is the first step towards a holistic approach to watershed management in the region.
In a related but separate effort, the Program Management Team completed a comprehensive Green Infrastructure evaluation for ALCOSAN. Potential green opportunity projects were identified for combined sewer municipalities within the service area that would be cost effective from either a local or regional perspective.
