How DELCORA Scheduled Inspections Across 15 Municipalities by Risk and Cut Assessment Timelines from 2 Years to 6 Months

About DELCORA

DELCORA, the Delaware County Regional Water Quality Control Authority, manages over 200 miles of collection systems across Southeastern Pennsylvania and oversees system assessments in 15 municipalities on a two-year reinspection cycle. James Cartafalsa, Director of Collection Systems and IP, has been with DELCORA for 16 years. He began as a field laborer and advanced through roles as camera operator, foreman, and specialist in PLC programming and automation before assuming his current leadership position.

In 2022, DELCORA published its first case study with SewerAI, detailing how it consolidated inspection data, implemented AutoCode, and nearly doubled the linear footage assessed each year, without adding crews or trucks. That was the productivity chapter. This is the next one: what happens when a utility leverages all that data to make smarter decisions about where its crews truly need to go.

"What SewerAI has done for us is unlock the power of stagnant data. It's become a one-stop shop where everybody can participate, everybody can have a say, a true collaboration where all three phases of the company are involved: the guys doing the work, the people reviewing the videos, and the engineers making decisions."
— James Cartafalsa, Director of Collection Systems and IP, DELCORA

Where the story started - 2022

A brief recap of DELCORA’s 2022 case study with SewerAI, highlighting the productivity gains that laid the foundation for what’s to come.

In 2022, DELCORA was operating under a federal consent decree and consistently falling short of its inspection targets. Despite having three CCTV crews in the field, the data they collected required extensive quality control, and manual field coding led to inconsistent results. Each inspection took about 45 minutes to process, causing a review backlog that made it even harder to meet production goals. The authority considered adding another CCTV truck to close the gap, but the capital cost was prohibitive. Instead, DELCORA took a different approach: they adopted SewerAI’s AutoCode, allowing AI to handle condition assessments and enabling the existing fleet to achieve much more with advanced technology.

The results:

• 88% more linear feet assessed per year (160,000 → 300,000)
• 38% reduction in cost per inspected linear foot
• 45 min → 20 sec processing time per inspection
• One truck reduced from the fleet, capital expense avoided
• 4+ years of continuous partnership since

But the most significant change wasn’t just increased productivity, it was the data. For the first time, DELCORA had a consistent, standardized, and comprehensive view of its entire collection system. The next challenge was figuring out how to use this new information, and that’s where this story begins.

The Challenge

DELCORA's productivity gains from the original SewerAI deployment created a new problem: now that the team could inspect dramatically more pipe in the same time, where exactly should that capacity go?

A two-year cycle that didn't match reality

DELCORA's standard re-inspection rhythm was every two years per community across all 15 municipalities it serves. The cycle was easy to plan, but it overlooked a crucial reality of the system. Some lines truly needed eyes on them every six months. Others could safely wait three, four, or even five years. Treating them all the same meant some critical assets were going too long between checks, while crews were burning hours unnecessarily re-inspecting the pipe.

Capital planning lived in spreadsheets and people's heads

Behind the inspection program sat an even bigger problem. DELCORA's capital planning was assembled from individual Excel files and the institutional memory of long-tenured staff, including one supervisor with 45+ years of experience. Decisions about which projects got funded and when relied heavily on which engineer had which spreadsheet open, and on what veterans remembered about the system. When those people retire, that knowledge walks out the door.

The Solution

DELCORA moved from a productivity-first SewerAI deployment to a decision-first one, using Risk & Rehab to set the agenda, and Smart Project Builder to turn that agenda into the work crews actually do.

Risk & Rehab — prioritizing only the assets that need attention

With Risk & Rehab, DELCORA replaced the two-year calendar cycle with a risk-based one. The model weighs structural condition alongside the consequences of failure, proximity to hospitals, rivers, and other sensitive environments, and assigns an individualized reinspection schedule to each asset. Some lines are now flagged for re-inspection in six months. Others are cleared for five years. Crews now spend less time on pipes that don't need attention and more on those the data identifies as most likely to fail.

The same engine now drives DELCORA's first AI-built capital plan. Instead of a list of projects pulled from spreadsheets, the 10-year plan is built on Risk & Rehab outputs and is defensible to the board, ratepayers, and engineering partners.

Smart Project Builder — turning the data into projects that crews can actually run

Risk & Rehab tells DELCORA which assets need attention. Smart Project Builder turns those prioritized assets into structured inspection projects, bundles of work that crews and contractors can execute against, with status visible across the team. DELCORA is in the early stages of this workflow, currently using Smart Project Builder to track autocoding status across active projects. As DELCORA expands its contract services footprint with neighboring municipalities, Smart Project Builder serves as the operational layer that lets a single team manage multiple concurrent assessments without losing track of where each one stands.

Institutional knowledge, captured alongside the data

Risk & Rehab works only as well as the inputs feeding it. DELCORA's long-tenured staff, including the 45-year supervisor, use SewerAI's tagging features daily to record observations, flag concerns, and leave a permanent record of decisions alongside the inspection data. When senior staff retire, their knowledge remains with the asset record, not lost with the person, and the risk model gets smarter as a result.

Results

Crews go only where the data sends them

DELCORA's inspection schedule is no longer set by a calendar; it's driven by data. Lines flagged as high-risk are re-inspected in as little as 6 months; lines cleared by the model are confidently deferred for up to 5 years. Field hours that were being burned on routine re-inspection of low-risk pipe are now redirected to the assets most likely to fail, without increasing headcount or the fleet.

"My crews don't have to guess anymore. The model tells me which lines to look at first this month, and which ones I can confidently leave alone. That's what changed."
— James Cartafalsa

Capital planning, defensible by data

Capital planning at DELCORA no longer depends on which engineer has which spreadsheet open. The 10-year plan is built on Risk & Rehab outputs that combine structural condition with the consequences of failure. In one recent example, a state stipend awarded to one of DELCORA's contract municipalities was allocated entirely on the basis of Risk & Rehab data, identifying the most critical lines for repair rather than spreading dollars by gut feel.

A smarter service model for 15 municipalities

Across the 15 municipalities DELCORA is responsible for, the calendar-based inspection model has been replaced by a risk-based one. The same crews now cover the same footprint with sharper focus: less rework, faster identification of true problem areas, and a defensible answer for any municipality asking why their system isn't inspected on the old two-year schedule. For the municipalities DELCORA serves under formal contract, the AI-driven approach reduced assessment timelines from one or two years to roughly six months.

"When a municipality asks me why we're not on their door every two years anymore, I have an answer. I can show them — here's what your system looks like, here's where the risk is, here's why we're focusing on these lines this year and not those ones. That conversation used to be a fight. Now it's data."
— James Cartafalsa

A foundation for what's next

Risk & Rehab now serves as the foundation for everything that follows: new inspection types, new contract communities, and new product modules. As SewerAI extends Risk & Rehab to additional asset classes, DELCORA is among the first utilities positioned to apply the same risk-based logic across the entire system, not just pipe.

Industry Recognition

In June 2026, James Cartafalsa was recognized with the Pennsylvania State Award for Collection System Innovation at the Pennsylvania Technical Conference. He has also developed a three-hour, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP)-approved continuing education course on AI and wastewater asset management — now required CEU credit for licensed operators in Pennsylvania — and is seeking approval to offer the course in New Jersey.