Hillsborough County, Florida, Selects Electro Scan Again for Major Project to Address Unwanted Sewer Infiltration

The Company’s Machine Intelligent Pipe Inspection Tool Used for Third Time to Support Aggressive I/I Reduction Program by the County

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, US, July 29, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Electro Scan Inc. announced today that work has begun on the Company's third major sewer inspection project for Hillsborough County, Florida. The County first adopted the Company’s award-winning Focused Electrode Leak Location technology, known as FELL, in 2019 to locate and quantify unwanted sewer infiltration, bringing the total inspection length performed for the County to over 40 miles, or 208,000 linear feet.

Hillsborough County is located in the west central coastline of the State of Florida with a population of 1.3 million, making it the fourth-most populous county in Florida.

Managing over 1,400 miles of gravity sewers and 788 lift stations, which transports & treats over 42 million gallons per day, tidal and wet-weather infiltration can oftentimes enter the sewer system through cracks, defective joints, and services connections, with additional risk to the underground aquifer system.

In previous projects, the County has seen that the robust FELL data sets have documented that a small fraction of the pipes inspected are contributing to most of the unwanted inflow and infiltration flows entering the system.

Richard Cummings, the Division Director of Field Maintenance Services has remarked “We are always open to utilizing new technology to improve operations here in Hillsborough County. Electro Scan is interesting and innovative! In the past we performed expansive amounts of slip lining to correct physical defects. Our goal is to reduce I/I and the first objective is finding out where it is happening. Electro Scan is scalable, repeatable and quantitative. We believe in the technology and hope to utilize Electro Scan in all future I/I studies and if possible, procure Electro Scan for in-house work as well.”

Electro Scan Inc. can be FOLLOWED on LinkedIn for future project updates.

The new project underscores the County’s proactive approach to I/I reduction. For well over 3 years now, even through the COVID-19 pandemic, the County has been installing over 800 water meters per month at new housing developments. This rapid population growth is adding new flows to the County’s existing advanced wastewater treatment facilities, thus making I/I flow reduction a top priority.

“The County has realized the significance of FELL inspection to bring truly data-driven decision making to help support capital spending prioritization,” offered Mike Condran, PE, Electro Scan’s Southeast Vice President.

“We are honored to return for this third major assignment with the County which demonstrates the level of trust in how FELL data can directly benefit the County’s bottom line,” continued Condran.

Following previous successes elsewhere in the County’s 1,400-mile collection network, this current project is targeted to specific areas of the Falkenburg Sewer Basin where excessive I/I was identified by the company's engineering partner McKim & Creed, Inc.

“We are delighted to know that the County has been able to use FELL data so effectively from the earlier projects and are excited to continue this very productive collaboration to reduce I/I,” commented Chuck Hansen, Chairman & Founder of Electro Scan.

“This third major project opens a new chapter for how the County plans to use FELL technology to their advantage and avoid unnecessary capital spending on pipes that are not contributing to infiltration,” added Hansen.

The striking results from Electro Scan’s first two projects, totaling more than 30 miles, showed that only about one-third of the pipes were contributing nearly 75% of the potential I/I flows. The data generated in this new project will allow the County to identify only those pipes contributing to I/I.

In these unprecedented times where capital budgets are strained, setting prudent spending priorities is essential.

Unlike closed-circuit television (CCTV) inspection, which simply cannot effectively find or measure I/I sources, Electro Scan’s award-winning technology brings a new level of actionable condition assessment data.

During the previous two inspection projects, Electro Scan completed a side-by-side comparison of FELL data against Pipeline Assessment Certification Program (PACP) reports prepared by the County’s third-party CCTV inspection firm.

While NASSCO PACP reports indicated less than two dozen pipe & lateral defects contributing to I/I, in contrast FELL data showed in excess of 1,200 defects.

More importantly, FELL data located each defect to within 3/8 of an inch (1cm) and quantified the potential flow from each defect in Gallons per Minute (GPM), the most commonly used metric in the water industry.

“One powerful aspect of FELL technology over legacy CCTV inspection is the ability to immediately identify which pipes are leaking the most,” remarked Mike App, Vice President of Operations.

“Then, using our cloud-based Critical Sewers^® platform, the County and its engineers can make better decisions about the most cost-effective repair or rehabilitation method for each pipe,” continued App.

Last month, Electro Scan Inc. was awarded PRODUCT OF THE YEAR, by Environment & Energy Leaders, and in January 2021 was selected LEAK DETECTION SOLUTION OF THE YEAR FOR 2021, by IoT Breakthrough. Both awards recognized the Company's release of its non-acoustic machine intelligent solutions for precisely locating and quantifying leaks pressurized drinking water pipelines, needed to help manage utility's Non-Revenue Water and drought conditions.

Given the past project successes with FELL technology, the County is looking to now add Electro Scan’s innovative inspection equipment to retrofit one of its CCTV inspection trucks and perform the work in-house with its own labor forces. Many other municipalities across the country have adopted this approach to modify its inspection fleet and conduct their own FELL testing.

Most recently, the City of Decatur, Alabama added FELL technology to their own inspection vehicle, and in just 7 months has completed nearly 160,000 linear feet of gravity sewer inspections to support their aggressive I/I reduction efforts.

While conducting low-voltage conductivity FELL inspection almost exclusively in gravity pipes to date, the company recently added the capabilities to now inspect potable pressure transmission mains and sewerage force mains. Using a proprietary pipe insertion and retrieval mechanism, this ground-breaking addition to its technology lineup expands Electro Scan’s capabilities to support pipe inspection needs across the board for complex pressure pipe inspections.

The company is active across the US, Canada, the UK and western Europe, Japan, and Australia, with more recent additions in Singapore, China, and Brazil. These increased service offerings around the world demonstrate the intense demand for accurate, reliable, and repeatable pipe leak detection with utilities and industries everywhere.

ABOUT ELECTRO SCAN
Electro Scan Inc., is a leading supplier of machine-intelligent pipeline assessment products and services for the water & wastewater pipeline market, developing proprietary pipe condition assessment equipment and delivering field services, and cloud-based applications that automatically locate, measure, and report leaks typically not found by legacy inspection methods. Entirely self-funded, the company is a leading provider of CleanTech solutions providing needed Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) asset stewardship.

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Janine Mullinix
Electro Scan Inc.
+1 916-779-0660
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