DDS Sigma Model 980 located at the entrance to the treatment plant on Hays Hollow.
Click here to enlarge imageIt’s also clear from checking data that the townships have a problem with inflow and infiltration into their systems. The DDS flow monitoring system also includes a rain gauge.
“You can see the trends very easily in the graphs on the website. When the rains come, the flows go up,” Appel said.
Oil City staff uses Flo-Ware software to generate reports that are sent to management. The DDS service also offers a graphical web-based user interface. Hydrographs, scatter-plots, and tabular data indicating min, max, and average values for any user-selectable measurement including level, velocity, flow, battery voltage, call log, continuity, temperature, and sensor specific diagnostic and quality parameters are provided.
Users can view their flow data from any Internet connected web browser through a secure log-in. Multiple users can be granted different data access levels based on job function.
Alerts can be sent to a PDA, e-mail, mobile phone, or pager. Alerts include overflow or anything that’s being measured. Flexible notification schemes provide alerts to the appropriate personnel based on pre-defined availability schedules.
Hach monitors the health and status of all networked flow meters 24/7. If a problem is detected with meters, they are repaired or replaced within the data uptime guarantee.
Oil City is currently planning a $5 million CSO monitoring and repair project. The city captures an estimated 69 percent of flows in its system but the Pennsylvania DEP wants that raised to 85 percent capture. While the current flow monitoring system is not directly tied to that project, being able to identify the issue of I&I from the neighboring townships is an important first step, Appel said. WW