Computerized regional planning for land disposal of wastewater

This paper describes the development and utilization of a large scale mixed integer programming model for regional planning of land disposal of wastewater within the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical area. This model is derived, and used to determine which land disposal sites should serve which treatment plants, when initial construction should be initiated and completed, and when capacity expansion should occur. Consideration is given to relevant construction and operating costs for land sites and transmission arteries, land acquisition costs, tangible benefits from land use, controls on pollution of aquifers, and various other engineering and technical constraints. The computational aspects of the model's use are emphasized in the paper, and extensive test results are presented and discussed.