The Buffalo Sewer Authority (BSA) saved $145 million by deploying a cutting-edge digital system that reduced polluted water flowing into its rivers during storm events, according to a press release by Xylem.
The project harness data and analytics to transform Buffalo’s sewer network, automatically redirecting excess rainwater to underused parts of its system to prevent overflows. The project was a collaboration with water technology company Xylem.
The technology allowed BSA to use its existing network and solve a longstanding problem without spending on new infrastructure. The city can now use the $145 million savings to lessen the associated costs for city residents.
“Buffalo’s waterways have come a long way in recent years, with people fishing, strolling along their banks, and enjoying all sorts of festivities,” said Mayor Byron W. Brown. “I want to thank Oluwole A. McFoy, BSA general manager, for collaborating with Xylem to incorporate smarter technology into Buffalo’s existing infrastructure network and ensuring that we are sustainable in what we do.”
Aging water infrastructure, the impacts of climate change, and tight budgets to pay for upgrades mean utilities must be innovative to solve critical challenges.
“This project is about giving Buffalo a new way to manage its existing system,” said Rich Loeffler, senior practice and solutions architect at Xylem. “They already have these big assets and pieces of infrastructure. The idea is to give them a little tweak so that they run slightly differently during wet weather and avoid combined sewer discharges into the waterways.”
Using Xylem’s Wastewater Network Optimization System to address high volumes of combined sewer overflows (CSOs), BSA used machine learning, hydraulic modeling, and data and analytics to optimize its network.
BSA used Xylem’s optimization solution to create a real-time decision support system that can visualize, predict, and control flows, regardless of the weather. Similar to a traffic app, the smart sewer system uses data from sensors across the network to pinpoint buildups. When one part of the network is under pressure, the city can redirect flow to underutilized parts of the system.
Having successfully embedded the Real Time Control Smart Sewer technology at several sites, BSA has now committed to incorporating it into future projects across the city of Buffalo for a variety of applications. The technology will ultimately reduce the size and number of costly new infrastructure projects by maximizing usage within the overall system.
In a city with extremely localized weather patterns, this network of sensors will allow the individual sites to communicate and create capacity where it is needed most.
"The technology is unique because it treats the entire collection system as one cohesive, globally coordinated unit,” added Loeffler. “If you only see rain in one part of the city, you may want to maximize or move flows in that portion of the city differently than somewhere where it is not raining.”
