Hudson Utility Locate and GIS

Challenge

The City of Hudson faced annual reporting requirements after being identified and regulated as an operator of a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4). Because of this, the City had to undertake a new comprehensive inventory and assessment of their storm sewer system. But some of this information had been lost over the years with staff turnover, new developments and historical challenges with information management. The City also saw this as an opportunity to collect information about their sanitary sewer and water systems to supplement existing records that had not been field verified.

Solution

SEH conducted a GPS inventory of over 14,000 water, sanitary and storm system structures for the City. Multiple crews used GPS instruments and mobile tablets to record the location and attributes of these facilities. Once collected, this information was made available to the City via a reliable, intuitive and efficient web-based mapping application. The City is now able to query the data for structure counts, analyze the system and plan for future capital improvements. Moving away from hard-copy and static maps to a centralized and dynamic platform accessible via the office or field has made City staff more efficient and effective in their everyday work activities.