The City of Columbia is adding a monitoring system into the downtown Columbia and MU sewage pipes.
The city is collecting data to see what sewage pipes have restrictions or are in need of an upgrade.
Engineering manager for the City of Columbia Justin Fessler said the monitor will measure the volume of the sewage that travels through the pipe throughout the week.
“That allows us to enter that information into our modeling software to let us know what kind of capacity or how much the pipes are currently handling, and how much is left in there to handle additional capacity that wasn’t already there,” Fessler said.
Fessler said the monitor will be placed in already created manholes throughout downtown.
The city is also gathering information to determine the capacity of the existing pipes before future residential developments, which typically generates the most usage.
“If you don’t do your due diligence and your calculation and just let whoever, come in and dump whatever amount of sewage, they want down the drain. Then it starts clogging the system, backing the system up and people’s basement drains will start backing up,” Fessler said.
The monitors in downtown manholes will be installed over the next few weeks, while those on the University of Missouri campus will be installed in the spring.
It will take around 6-12 weeks to gather the data.
