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The Problem:

Douglas County Sewer District #1 (District), located within the sensitive Tahoe Basin, is responsible for collecting and treating sewage generated in the Stateline area, including the casino core along U.S. Highway 50 in the Lake Tahoe Basin. There was no accurate information available about the location of many existing facilities, which made emergency repairs of underground facilities very difficult, especially during heavy winter snow.

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The Solution:

All available AutoCAD drawings and hard copy record drawings of the District’s collection system were collected and organized into a single AutoCAD-compatible file. The survey crew then undertook the task of precisely locating all above-ground infrastructure, manholes, valves, service lines, and lift stations using a GPS data collection receiver. In areas where GPS did not provide such accuracy (i.e., heavy tree canopy, obscured sky, etc.), conventional surveying techniques were used to achieve the same accuracy standard for those locations. Coordination of the contract and services planned for high-resolution orthorectified photogrammetry, which was incorporated into the field-grade survey data to locate existing facilities, including both rim and invert elevations of gravity facilities, necessary to prepare district-wide mapping.

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The Results:

The data was collected and added to the District’s Geographic Information System. Color mapping booklets for the entire system were created and provided to the District’s vehicles to help with field locations. Lastly, facilities mapping data was uploaded into Delorme handheld GPS units for use by District personnel to locate facilities in the field.