Bloetscher, Frederick

A confounding factor for sea level rise (SLR) is that it has a slow, steady creep,
which provides a false sense for coastal communities. Stresses caused by SLR at today’s
rate are more pronounced in southeastern Florida and as the rate of SLR accelerates, the
exposure areas will increase to a point where nearly all the state’s coastal infrastructure
will be challenged.
The research was conducted to develop a method for measuring the impact of
SLR on the City of West Palm Beach (City), assess its impact on the stormwater system,
identify vulnerable areas in the City, provide an estimate of long-term costs of
improvements, and provide a toolbox or strategies to employ at the appropriate time. The
assessment was conducted by importing tidal, groundwater, topographic LiDAR and
infrastructure improvements into geographic modeling software and performing analysis
based on current data. The data revealed that over $400 million in current dollars might
be needed to address stormwater issues arising from SLR before 2100.

Water supply managers often look for easily applied metrics to determine where
water use can be curtailed. Unfortunately, the one-size-fits-all mentality comes with a
price of failing to fully grasp the consequences decision-making based on such metrics.
One issue that water supply regulator like to use is per capita water use. Per capital water use is often used to show where there is “wasted” water use, such as excessive irrigation. However such a metric may not be truly applicable depending on other economic factors. A heavily industrial area may add to apparent per capital use, but actually is an economic development activity. The focus of this project is to look at various water utilities and their per capital usage with the intent of discerning whether or not a better metric could be developed that consider the economic development activities of the region and water use.

Substantial savings in operations can be achieved by reducing the amount of wastewater that must be pumped and treated. Utilities have long dealt with the infiltration and inflow (I and I) issues in their system by televising their pipes and identifying leak points, but this primarily addresses only the infiltration part of “I and I.” Inflow, which creates hydraulic issues during rain events, leads to sanitary sewer overflows and can subject the utility to fines from regulatory agencies. As a result, dealing with the inflow portion of I and I is needed. The goal of this thesis is to differentiate inflow and infiltration from baseflow and to determine the effectiveness of different methods used to reduce inflow and infiltration in sanitary sewer lines. An analysis was conducted on the benefits and cost effectiveness of different inflow/infiltration approaches (slip-lining sewer lines, stormwater manhole inserts, replacing sewer lines, smoke testing, etc.) and cost savings municipalities can expect to receive from each.

Groundwater aquifers are precious resources that has been serving human
consumption for many centuries. This resource is pristine in comparison with surface
waters such as lakes and canals, however, as population grows exponentially so does the
demand for groundwater and the need to study the potential of groundwater replenishment
programs. The injection of treated water or wastewater into an aquifer is a method to protect
this resource for current and future generations. Health concerns would be expected since
migration of water of “impaired quality” can affect the drinking water by contamination.
Regulatory barriers resulting from the perceived risks of adverse health effects from
pathogens such as viruses have limited the concept of this impaired water resources from
being used for groundwater replenishment programs. The objective of this study is to
examine the risk assessment using computational modeling with MODFLOW and MT3D groundwater transport simulation. The results from the simulation showed that after two years, the risk of contamination based on concentration contours from the injection well to the production wellfields for the City of Hollywood stabilized below 10- 6. The risk assessment provided important aspect to demonstrate the concept of using injection of treated water as an option for groundwater replenishment.

Sampling data of many surface water bodies in Broward County tend to reveal
abnormal levels of bacterial concentrations for total coliform, Escherichia coli and
Enterococcus. Given the presence of septic systems in geohydrologically sensitive areas
throughout the County, several studies (Morin 2005 and Bocca 2007) suggested a
correlation in the high bacterial densities and the septic sites.