Before 2003, the Hallsdale-Powell Utility District in Tennessee was doing little to stem rampant inflow and infiltration in its system. When they received a consent order in 2004 from the Environmental Protection Agency, they had to play serious catch-up.

To do so, they started from the ground up, building a comprehensive management plan out of nothing.

First was creating a GIS map and collecting the data to populate it. They managed to do so in only a few years’ time,...