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Donahue engineer flags Zone 3 fire‑flow bottleneck, recommends pipe upsizing and booster upgrades
Summary
Donahue & Associates presented a rebuilt hydraulic model for Middlebury, identified a pressure bottleneck in Zone 3 and locations with less than 500 gallons per minute fire flow, and recommended targeted pipe upsizing, booster station upgrades and tank modifications; a technical memorandum will follow.
Emily Weymier of Donahue & Associates introduced Chris Stafford, the firm's senior hydraulic modeler, who summarized the firm’s work rebuilding Middlebury’s water model with updated GIS data and customer usage. Stafford explained modeling functions — pressure, fire flow and water age — and said the model helped test scenarios such as taking Tower 2 offline or sizing mains for large new customers. He described the system inventory and told the council "Essentially, it's built from the information, that's in your system, in your GIS system."
Stafford identified a significant bottleneck in Pressure Zone 3 that limits available fire flow in parts of town and noted two areas under 500 gallons per minute; he recommended upsizing certain four‑inch mains to eight or larger and considering booster station upgrades and altitude valves on proposed towers. Staff said they will deliver a technical memorandum summarizing methodology, calibration data and prioritized recommendations for further testing and pipe replacements.
