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City of Ann Arbor SSWWEP - Citizens Advisory Committee Coordination — City of Ann Arbor

Recommended reading for Feb 13 CAC Meeting - Examples from Other Communities

Posted by Lori Byron on 11 Feb, 2014
Category: No category

Greetings CAC members, 

A large portion of Thursday's CAC meeting will be devoted to brainstorming and discussing non-FDD alternatives. Robert asked me to re-post a document he created that gives a broad overview of the different approaches to mitigating wet weather issues in sanitary sewer systems, and examples of communities who've used those approaches. 

This was originally distributed at the October 29 CAC meeting. 

Comments

Joe Conen on 12 Feb, 2014:

Thanks for this. I couldn't find the one posted earlier.
Joe

Michelle Lovasz on 14 Feb, 2014:

I just want to say that we did not spend time "brainstorming" non-FDD alternatives.

Jim Osborn on 14 Feb, 2014:

Do you mean in our break-out groups, or in discussions? Because Robert spend oven an hour explaining storage, transferring, and other methods besides FDDs to limit water from entering the system. It was more of a lecture, I admit, but I am not understanding what you are meaning.

Charlie Fleetham on 14 Feb, 2014:

Regarding brainstorming ... we did not have time to do it.  We underestimated the Q&A time during Robert's presentation.

Robert Czachorski on 14 Feb, 2014:

The brainstorming will be a lot more productive with the primer now under our belts on the fundamentals of alternatives, and when we have "Murat's maps" from the risk assessment and hydraulic capacity assessment.  

We can also brainstorm here. Michelle - did you have some ideas you wanted to share?

Beverly Smith on 14 Feb, 2014:

I have a question about source removal. Are retention basins, rain gardens, back yard ponds, willow trees (or other water loving species) effective at drawing water away from an individual house and mitigating the amount of water that would be entering the footing drains and then the sanitary sewer?
Bev
Sent from my iPad

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Michelle Lovasz on 14 Feb, 2014:

Not at the moment, Robert, but thank you.  I do feel comfortable putting them here.  There is a stronger interactive dynamic in face-to-face in the moment brainstorming of bringing our minds together, and I was looking forward to that.  There was some of that at our technical meeting.  What I would like would require more time and commitment than we're already tasked with, but I still want it.  I wonder if others feel the same way.

Joe Conen on 14 Feb, 2014:

I heard an interesting idea from someone (I am not naming anyone) regarding a variation on FDD that would not involve homeowner sump pumps.
Footing drains could be collected in a deeper collection pipe via gravity. A common reservoir for a group of homes at the low point would be pumped into the storm system. The pumps would be larger, and with fewer pump installations, it may be practical to add redundancy and improved control and monitoring of the pumps.  Cost, reliability, and other factors need to be considered, but even if this idea proves impractical,  it is a way to get the ideas flowing.
This was not my brain, but it is a new way to look at source removal.