The Sewer Authority Mid-Coastside (SAM) is a California joint powers authority (JPA) that provides wastewater conveyance and treatment services to its three member agencies: Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD), Granada Community Services District (GCSD) and the City of Half Moon Bay. SAM’s service area is along the Pacific coast 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of San Francisco.

The SAM system includes conveyance (collection, pumping, and transmission of raw sewage) from member agency facilities to the SAM Wastewater Treatment Plant.

SAM services several pipelines totaling approximately 275,000 linear feet of pipelines. These pipes need to be cleaned and serviced regularly. Failing in servicing these pipelines could result in sewer overflows at residences or various manholes.

Pipeline inspection at SAM is carried out by Enterprise Asset Management. This refers to the process of monitoring and assessing the condition of a pipeline system using the dedicated software platform called “ Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)”, which centralizes all asset data, allowing for scheduled inspections, tracking of pipeline integrity, and proactive maintenance planning to ensure safe and reliable operations while minimizing costs.

External asset inspection using EAM refers to the process of visually assessing the condition of a physical asset located outside a SAM facility and recording data about its current state through the dedicated EAM software platform. EAM then helps with planning necessary maintenance actions and tracking asset health over time. This process determines the condition of the pipes and the frequency for performing the external inspection.

SAM has been implementing this approach since 2017. This paper introduces how SAM combines regular inspection with EAM to proactively maintain its system, optimize asset repair and rehabilitation cost, and improve operation efficiency.