Hydraulic modeling services allows city to analyze and optimize water systems

In order to analyze and optimize the performance of Newton’s water distribution infrastructure, the city council approved a professional services agreement with civil engineering firm Bolton & Menk for hydraulic modeling services. When completed, these simulations should help future decision making.

According to city council agenda documents, the Newton WaterWorks has not conducted hydraulic modeling in many years. Future capital project planning makes this service even more essential. By using hydraulic modeling, the city and engineers can do the following:

• Assess system efficiencies by identifying and locating pressure variations, bottlenecks and areas with inadequate flow.

• Support infrastructure planning by evaluating the impact of system expansions, upgrades and new developments.

• Improve water quality by simulating water age, chlorine decay and other parameters to ensure safe water delivery to residents.

• Optimize operations by enhancing pump management, storage capacity and energy efficiency within the water distribution center.

• Enhance emergency preparedness by modeling scenarios like pipe failures, fire flow demands and system contamination events.

Implementing hydraulic modeling ensures the city has a resilient and efficient water distribution system that supports current operations and future growth. Newton Utilities Director Jody Rhone said the hydraulic modeling would take two to three months to complete. The city is already eyeing specific locations.

When the city gets its hands on the modeling data, Rhone suggested staff can better respond to water distribution issues around town.

“Anytime we needed to go back and say we have a certain section of main that we need to work on, that could be done under general engineering where they just look at a spot location,” he said. “…But a lot of the followup would probably just be done under our general engineering contract with Bolton & Menk.”

The fee for the hydraulic modeling services is $27,440 and is paid for out of water revenue bond funds, which is not property tax dollars.

Scope of services outlined in the contract show Bolton & Menk will coordinate with the city to collect existing GIS data for the distribution system, including water main locations and size, material, age and other known information. It will also collect data on water use and the largest water users and water use areas.

Bolton & Menk also intends to create the initial model setup and model calibration before presenting its final results to city staff. The engineering firm will be required to deliver hydrant testing field data and a technical memo with figures describing the results of the model evaluation and proposed scenarios.