1 ANALYSIS OF RAINFALL AND ITS INFLOW INTO MOBILE, ALABAMA’S, ESLAVA SEWER SHED SYSTEM

Every city across the nation has to deal with a common problem, sewage. Infiltrating rainwater filling sewer systems beyond capacity affects your neighborhood, community and region. The City of Mobile in Dog River Watershed has been forced to address recurrent problems with infiltrating rainwater and Sanitary Sewer Overflows. Overflows have been a common and complex problem combined with century old pipes and rain water infiltration. Not only do overflows caused by rainwater decrease system capacity to collect and treat raw sewage, they also degrade water quality in the water shed by overflowing into storm drains, yards, homes and businesses. This study utilized rainfall and system flow data collected by Mobile Area Water and Sewer System as well as data from National Weather Service. The rainfall and flow data was compared and evaluated with National Weather Service Doppler radar rainfall estimates to gauge how much water due to infiltration enters the Eslava Creek sewer shed. A sewer shed, defined similarly to a watershed, collects sewage from a delineated area and concentrates it into a main line to flow into treatment plants. Although metering and rainfall data have been collected for several years, it is difficult to relate this data as to what will cause an overflow. This study found that overflows can be exacerbated by excessive rainfall infiltration