Costs and Benefits for Pipeline Acoustic Fiber Optic Monitoring

The San Diego County Water Authority has been using acoustic fiber optic (AFO) systems to monitor prestressed concrete cylinder pipes (PCCP) in real-time since 2006. Currently, the Water Authority has seven AFO systems monitoring 37 miles (60 km) of PCCP, which has captured over 1,400 distinct wire break events. The Water Authority has spent a significant amount of capital and operating resources to install and maintain this system, totaling over $13 million since 2006. This paper will discuss the Water Authority’s history with real time pipeline monitoring, the total costs of monitoring, analyze the payback period for the monitoring costs, and the several benefits to the Water Authority. The benefits include savings due to reduced pipeline shutdowns and associated labor, PCCP inspection savings, deferred rehabilitation based on defensible data, proactive failure response based on the data, and the value of wire break frequency information to make critical decisions.