Gresham Smith-Designed Infrastructure Improvements Reduce Overflows in Springfield
Gresham Smith announces the completion of significant conveyance and wastewater storage projects for the City of Springfield. These projects are part of the City’s initiative to fulfill its Administrative Order on Consent (AOC) with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and eliminate sanitary sewer overflows. As the second and third phases of improvements in the City’s Overflow Abatement Program, the infrastructure improvements move the municipality significantly closer to compliance with the AOC, while positioning Springfield as a more sustainable and healthy environment for the greater community.
“We’ve been working with the City of Springfield since 2012 to strengthen the community’s infrastructure and we are proud to complete two more phases of the Overflow Abatement Program,” said Ken Stewart, P.E., Vice President at Gresham Smith. “We are glad that the solutions we developed in our partnership with the City are eliminating overflows and meeting expectations from the EPA while also having a positive impact on the Water & Wastewater Department. The more robust sanitary sewer system sets the stage for long-term success and will accommodate future growth and development, benefitting Springfield for many years to come.”
Using data from the hydraulic model of the collection system, Gresham Smith’s solution balanced rehabilitation (Phase 1), conveyance and storage, upsizing approximately 16,000-linear-feet of trunk and interceptor sewer and constructing two wastewater storage facilities along Carr Creek and Sulfur Fork Creek. This combination of remediation methods reduces rainfall-induced flows into the system, maximizes system storage and improves system capacity while minimizing costs to the utility. The project team also rehabilitated numerous manholes, adding watertight covers and replacing vent assemblies in flood-prone areas.
Additionally, under the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Block Grant program, the Gresham Smith team protected the integrity of the Carr Creek interceptor sewer by stabilizing the eroded creek bank and relocating the approximately 1,100-linear-foot sewer line further inland.
In 2018, the firm completed the first phase of the City’s Overflow Abatement Program. The initial seven sewer rehabilitation projects encompassed 33 miles of sanitary sewers—about 25% of the City’s sewer system—and reduced the number of sanitary sewer overflows from 224 per year to fewer than 15.