Underground Construction - February 2018 - 14

21st Annual Municipal Survey
lead water pipes in our system,"
said this water official from
the Northeast. "Of course, like
most new rules, there will be no
mention of funding - we'll just
be expected to find the money
ourselves."
Spending plans
After the disappointment many
experienced with their 2017 budgets and lack of movement to enhance federal and state funding
support, city officials were understandably cautious with their
spending projections for 2018.
Cities initially forecasted their
water/sewer/stormwater piping
infrastructure in 2017 would be
about $19.2 billion. However, by
the end of the year, the actual
spending levels had retreated to
$18.6 billion. For 2018, municipal personnel are again increasing their spending plans -
just barely - by 1.5 percent, to
$19 billion.
Survey information reports
that cities hope to spend roughly
$10.8 billion on new construction and rehabilitation for underground pipes. Sewer comprises
$5.2 billion of that total, water
$3.7 billion and $1.9 billion for
stormwater/culverts. About $8.2
billion is anticipated to be spent
on pipe rehabilitation, including
$4.7 on sewer, $2.2 for water
and $1.4 billion for stormwater/
culverts.
The positive news is while
cities are expecting the worse,
many believe there is a good
chance their budgets will be increased as they get further into
2018. "We've got so many needs
that it is critical we invest more
into our pipes," said this respondent from a Southwest city. "The
city is being very cautious with
the budget, but we're supposedly first in line for additional
funding if our local economy
continues to improve." A municipal manager for the Southeast
14

FEBRUARY 2018 | UConOnline.com

When Using Trenchless Methods, how often are the
following technologies used:
CIPP

49%

Point repairs

41%

Spray-type coatings

29%

HDD

27%

Chemical root control

26%

Pipe bursting

24%

Lateral lining

19%

Sliplining

17%

Pipe ramming

Folded pipe
Microtunneling

9%
3%

added, "We think we'll actually
get a budget increase, but the
city manager believes we should
budget low and see how the year
develops."
To illustrate just how much of
a problem funding represents, the
survey asked for an estimate of
how much additional funding over
current budget plans is needed
to meet the many needs of both
construction and rehabilitation of
water and sewer infrastructure in
2018. Just for sewer, that amount
topped $90 billion, water exceeded
$50 billion and stormwater needs
were $32 billion. In total, city officials estimate they need $172
billion to meet their needs for
the next year.
Raising water and sewer customer bills (user fees) is always a
hot topic among cities. Never a
popular move, historically cities
have delayed raising fees, even to
keep pace with inflation. Budgetary realities plus potential from
EPA mandates have increasing-

ly forced cities to swallow hard
and raise user feeds. While the
average amount of time between
user fee increases has decreased,
according to survey respondents,
cities still averaged 3.1 years between increases.
Buried asset management efforts continue to become more
standardized as the technology
of pipeline assessment progresses. Also, one cannot discount the
influence of the Pipeline Assessment and Certification Program
from NASSCO. PACP is an appealing and necessary standardization of inspection data that
cities are steadily finding necessary to manage their systems.
More than 40 percent of cities
have a buried asset management
plan fully established and operational, while 39 percent have
such a program in development.
The number of cities without an
asset management plan has fallen to 21 percent.

Trenchless perceptions
For many years, trenchless was
the trendy choice for construction and rehabilitation of the
underground sewer and water
infrastructure. Today, trenchless
methods are firmly established
as reliable and often the best
solution.
As trenchless has matured,
comments from municipal survey respondents demonstrate
that trenchless solutions have
become routine. "We just use
whatever is best for the job -
open-cut or trenchless," said this
respondent from the Northeast.
"It just depends on the project
and budget," commented an
official from the Southwest. A
Mid-Atlantic respondent stated,
"We use trenchless on a case-bycase basis."
During budget-crunching
times, trenchless rehabilitation
gained ground as a cost-effective and successful measure
to stretch dollars. However,
many survey respondents still
express the belief that trenchless tends to be more expensive and are cautious in using
it, due to budgetary concerns.
Yet others saw some trenchless
applications as "stop-gap" measures until they could afford to
completely replace pipes. Still,
the survey revealed that 54.1
percent of cities prefer to use
trenchless for rehab, and for
new construction trenchless
remains constant at about 25
percent of projects.
Municipal personnel were also
asked about their perception
of the quality and efficiency of
a variety of popular trenchless
methods, using a scale of 1 (low)
to 5 (high). Achieving the highest
performance rating for 2018 is
cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) with
a 4.4 rating - a huge jump from
3.8 rating in 2017. Horizontal
directional drilling also received
a major confidence boost, from

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Underground Construction - February 2018

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