Case Study: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission achieves faster stormwater pollution response with Trimble mobile GIS

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and Trimble Business Partner VESTRA Resources

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), working with Trimble partner VESTRA Resources, needed to reduce pollutants entering the storm‑water system through its "Only Rain Down the Drain" program. With roughly 20,000 drains and catch basins across the city and rising incidents of illegal dumping, SFPUC required a scalable way to inventory, mark, and rapidly respond to reports while integrating field data into its enterprise GIS.

VESTRA deployed a mobile GIS workflow using Trimble GeoXT handhelds, ESRI ArcPad with GPScorrect, and the Trimble GPS Analyst extension for ArcGIS; a data‑steward process clipped and prepared maps for crews, captured submeter locations and condition attributes in the field, post‑processed GPS data, and uploaded results to the enterprise geodatabase. The solution sped enforcement and maintenance responses, increased citizen reporting, generated targeted work orders, mapped about 10% of basins to date, and is being expanded to other departments.

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Lewis Harrison

Water Pollution Prevention Program Manager