Throw a dart at a map of Tennessee. You will probably hit somewhere that is growing. Nashville’s outskirts are projected to add a quarter to their population in the next 15 years. The Ford Motor Company has begun construction on the BlueOval City manufacturing plant outside of Memphis. A multibillion-dollar uranium enrichment facility has broken ground in the Knoxville exurbs.
Tennessee growing at double the rate of the rest of the U.S. does not surprise anyone who issues residential building permits in the state. Inspectors at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) saw requests for subsurface sewage disposal system services jump 18% in one year. “It’s a monumental, staggering rate to grow,” said Steve Owens, the TDEC environmental consultant tasked with expediting service delivery across the state.
Owens, a meteorologist by training, hydrologist by virtue, and self-taught geographic information system (GIS) engineer by practice, streamlined the work of TDEC inspectors with enterprise GIS technology. With it, a team of fewer than 100 inspectors processed over 23,000 requests last year in Tennessee’s rural fringe communities.
Designing a System Around How Inspectors Work
About one in five Americans lives in a home that relies on a septic system. They are built in remote areas too far to connect to municipal sewage systems, which happen to be the places where Tennessee is growing the fastest. High demand for housing created a sense of urgency to issue permits as swiftly — and as safely — as possible…