Stop guessing where the problem is

I've spent almost 25 years in water, wastewater, and stormwater markets, across both utility work and enterprise sales leadership. Now I'm StormHarvester's VP of North America. My job looks different these days. Instead of managing one network, I spend my time in the field and at industry events. I hear the same problem from utility teams all over the country, and I heard it loud and clear this year at WEFTEC, where we ran that survey at our booth.

Traditional I&I investigation (CCTV, smoke testing, dye tracing and flow surveys) still matters. Every utility I talk to relies on it. But none of these tools were built to answer the question that actually comes first: where should you look?

Why isn't traditional I&I investigation enough anymore?

Because it starts with a search. Without a starting point, teams survey wide areas before finding the assets driving the problem, and investment gets justified with a hunch.

Today's systems are bigger, and the pressure is higher. Many utilities now operate under EPA consent decrees or NPDES permits that demand real, documented progress. Investment has to be justified with more than a hunch.

Teams get pulled back to the same areas months later when new symptoms show up somewhere else. It's a cycle: investigate, intervene, reinvestigate, and it's expensive every time you go around it again.

The same pattern shows up in capital planning. Every utility has more projects than budget. Decisions have historically leaned on asset age, past issues, and local knowledge. Those things matter, but they don't tell you where the money will do the most good. It's easy to fund the loudest problem instead of the most expensive one. I've sat in enough budget meetings to know how often that happens.

How does data help utilities know where to look?

Continuously analysing rainfall response and hydraulic performance shows which sewersheds are behaving abnormally before you send a truck out, and where investment is likely to pay off before the budget is committed.

In practice, that looks like:

• Field crews sent to confirmed problem areas, not entire systems
• Capital dollars justified with data, not just precedent
• A documented case ready for consent decree reporting or a board review, before anyone asks for one

“Point people at the right place first, instead of asking them to find it.”

Greg Brazeau, VP North America

This isn't about replacing field investigation or engineering judgment. It just makes both sharper. It's the same principle we build StormHarvester around. Instead of surveying an entire system, teams go straight to the areas that matter. Instead of collecting data to find a problem, they use it to confirm one, and build a stronger case for it.

Utilities making this shift rely on evidence instead of precedent, data instead of guesswork. It changes the conversation with regulators and finance teams alike, from "we think this is the problem" to "here's the evidence." It's also the conversation I expect to keep having at the next show I attend.

About the author

Greg Brazeau

Vice President, North America at StormHarvester. Almost 25 years in water, wastewater and stormwater, across utility work and enterprise sales leadership.

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