Beaver Creek CSO Abatement and Flood Mitigation Program

Working together, CHA and the Albany Water Board created a real solution to flood mitigation in the City of Albany, NY—one that provides a model for sustainable smart infrastructure for other municipal communities to emulate. At the heart of the solution is a smart infrastructure network that utilizes a continuous monitoring adaptive control (CMAC) operational platform to proactively predict and manage wet weather flows. The network uses storage elements to manage flows and informs the City of Albany about pre-event planning activities as well as monitoring and managing flows during critical wet weather periods. The monitoring platform enables the City of Albany to detect system problems and impending flooding early, allowing them to take proactive maintenance and emergency actions.

The City of Albany experiences flash flooding and system surcharging issues causing flood damage to public and private properties and creating health hazards. To address the challenges of urban flooding and combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharge into the Hudson River, our progressive approach merged innovative technology with traditional grey strategies and green infrastructure practices. The abatement measures improve the performance of the infrastructure, including an underground stormwater harvesting cistern that provides 750,000 gallons of storage for reuse, and support the sustainability of important neighborhoods and business districts, thereby improving quality of life and health for residents.