CCMUA (CAMDEN COUNTY M.U.A.) COLLECTION SYSTEM

About the Sewer Collection System...

The CCMUA maintains the regional sewer collection system, 110 miles (175 km) of underground pipes, while each municipality maintains its own internal collection system piping.

Individual connections to the regional collection system are not allowed. New individual users must connect to their municipal sewer system.

The municipal collection systems were built, before the CCMUA existed, to come to a central location at the municipal treatment plant. The regional system makes use of this centralization by connecting to each municipal system at the site of the former municipal plant.

Camden is an exception to this pattern. The Camden City collection system feeds directly into the CCMUA's main plant (which used to be the city of Camden's plant).

Pipe diameters vary from 16 inches (40 cm) - about the length of a man's forearm and hand - to 96 inches or 8 feet (2.5 meters) - the height of an ordinary room, or more than enough for a basketball player to stand up in!

[Photo - Worker sitting on top of pipe - another man looks up at
him]

Some of the pipes are huge! This photo was taken during construction of the collection system.

The system was designed to deal with flow projected for a fully built up County. Additional capacity was included to deal with daily and seasonal variation. People use more water early in the morning, just after waking. Summer months bring high water usage. Average projected use was multiplied by a "peak factor" to allow enough capacity.

The regional collection system, designed, built, and maintained by the CCMUA, is strictly a "sanitary sewer" system - it collects only water discharged into the sewer by homes and businesses. Storm sewers, which collect runoff from rainstorms and melting snow, are kept separate.

Most of the system is gravity propelled. (Water runs downhill!) This is the cheapest, most reliable power source for the collection system.

Where required by topography (that is, a need to travel uphill), twenty-five pumping stations raise the wastewater to higher ground to continue flowing to the treatment plant.

Corrosion is always a concern with sewer pipes. Corrosion tends to happen because the organic material in the sewage gives off hydrogen sulfide. The hydrogen sulfide reacts with water to form sulfuric acid. The acid eats away at the pipe, eventually forcing repair or replacement. To minimize this problem, the CCMUA's system includes chemical feed stations at strategic points. Hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite (bleach), and other oxidizing chemicals are added to the sewage to prevent the formation of sulfides which may eventually lead to corrosion of the sewer pipes if untreated.