Portland's Sewer Rehabilitation Program Development and Implementation

Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) completed the sewer pipe rehabilitation plan to address structural deficiencies in the combined and separated sewer systems. The resulting eight-year, $123 million capital program used an asset management framework to identify and prioritize projects that mitigate structural risks and meet BES levels of service. Projects that provide cost-effective risk reduction were prioritized and implemented to address the most critical and urgent problems first. Sixteen sewer rehabilitation projects were created to group the work into cost-efficient sizes for design and construction. BES staff and consultant design teams together developed detailed designs for the 16 projects each in the range of $4 million to $10 million in costs. Significant work in closed-circuit television (CCTV) inspection, risk evaluation, and design is rapidly accomplished to refine which pipes are in scope and their rehabilitation methods. Technology-based contracts for cured-in-place pipe lining (CIPP) are used alongside traditional construction methods to implement the designs.