Bonneau Dickson offers forensic expertise in water and sewer disputes

Bonneau Dickson, PE, is highlighting forensic engineering and expert witness services for water, wastewater, stormwater, and septic disputes from his Berkeley practice. His work draws on more than 40 years in civil engineering and more than 25 years of forensic experience across cases involving sewer backups, pump stations, water main breaks, and drainage failures.

Why it matters: - Water, wastewater, stormwater, and septic disputes often turn on technical issues that can affect homes, businesses, insurers, and public agencies. - Dickson’s forensic work is aimed at separating system failure, maintenance issues, drainage conditions, and construction problems from legal questions. - The practice is relevant in cases where the condition of buried or aging infrastructure is central to damage claims or property transactions.

What happened: - Bonneau Dickson, PE, is offering forensic engineering, consulting, and expert witness services from Berkeley, California. - Dickson has more than four decades of experience with water, wastewater, and stormwater facilities in the United States and abroad. - He has worked independently as a consulting sanitary engineer since 1993. - The practice covers technical review for legal and insurance matters involving water, wastewater, sanitary sewer, septic, and stormwater systems.

The details: - Dickson reviews engineering drawings, inspection records, maintenance documents, photographs, videos, reports, operating procedures, regulatory requirements, and other technical material. - He may inspect facilities or properties and compare the evidence with possible failure mechanisms. - His role is to provide engineering analysis and explain the technical basis for conclusions, not to make legal determinations. - Documented case experience includes sewer blockages, inadequate sewer hydraulic capacity, backflow prevention systems, sewer maintenance programs, septic system failures, leach field construction, water system failures, and stormwater drainage conditions. - His septic-system work has included failed tanks and leach fields, inadequate inspections, leakage, surfacing effluent, drainage problems, and questions about design and standard of care. - He has also worked on septic disputes tied to residential property transactions, including questions about inspection quality, known problems, and property representations. - Dickson’s design background includes approximately 100 septic tank and leach field systems. - Sewer-related assignments have included sewage backups into residences, stores, apartments, and other buildings. - In one San Mateo County case, he evaluated sewer backup issues tied to sewer maintenance, sewer sags, unusual flow volume, and the need for a backflow prevention device. - In a Southern California case, he evaluated a backup linked to a trunk sewer and considered hydraulic capacity and maintenance of an existing backflow prevention valve. - Dickson has been involved in more than 300 water and wastewater pump stations in one capacity or another. - In a New England case, six wastewater pumps began failing after about four months of service, and Dickson documented the technical basis for replacement rather than repeated repair. - His broader design experience includes wastewater treatment facilities, pump stations, sewers, water facilities, and stormwater infrastructure. - He has participated in approximately 300 water, wastewater, and stormwater projects, ranging from septic tanks and wells to a 120-million-gallon-per-day pure oxygen wastewater treatment plant. - Water-system assignments have included water main breaks, property damage from water releases, water distribution issues, and questions about system operation and maintenance. - His project work includes participation in an 80-million-gallon-per-day water treatment plant and design work on wells, water pumping systems, and water distribution infrastructure. - Stormwater experience includes facility design, planning, drainage investigations, detention basin evaluation, and stormwater pump station projects. - He has managed stormwater pump station modifications and evaluated alternatives involving large-diameter sewers, pump stations, catch basins, street improvements, and other drainage infrastructure. - Dickson has participated in the design of about 300 water, wastewater, and stormwater projects. - He has served as project manager on about 175 projects and worked during construction on about 50 water and wastewater projects. - Earlier in his career, he worked with engineering firms and international development projects in Vietnam, Egypt, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, and Rwanda. - He was Chief Sanitary Engineer at Harris & Associates in Concord, California, from 1979 to 1993. - His education includes a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Sanitary Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, plus an M.A. in Sanitary Engineering and an MBA from Harvard. - Dickson is registered as a Civil Engineer in California, License No. 19491. - His professional affiliations have included the Water Environment Federation, California Water Environment Association, American Water Works Association, National Onsite Wastewater Association, California Onsite Water Association, and Pipe Users Group of Northern California. - He has about seven years of work outside the United States on projects in Vietnam, Egypt, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Tunisia, and Rwanda. - His forensic process can include site investigation, engineering calculations, document review, interviews, review of inspection footage, evaluation of maintenance records, and technical reports or testimony. - For attorneys and insurance professionals, that analysis can clarify which engineering issues need to be addressed in a case. - For property disputes, the work can help distinguish between a system deficiency, maintenance issue, drainage condition, construction problem, or other contributing factor. - Dickson generally advises homeowners to have septic tanks pumped about every five years, though the right interval depends on the system and usage. - Homeowners connected to public sewers can ask their sewerage agency about the elevation of the lowest plumbing-connected floor relative to the next upstream manhole. - For septic-system property transactions, documentation of the system’s existence, condition, inspection history, and known deficiencies can be important from an engineering perspective.

Between the lines: - The announcement positions Dickson as a niche technical witness for disputes where engineering evidence, not just visible damage, determines fault and liability. - The breadth of his background across design, construction, operation, and forensic review suggests a practice built to bridge technical analysis and courtroom explanation. - The focus on septic disclosures and sewer backup prevention also signals that many disputes start long before a claim is filed.

What's next: - Dickson is available for new matters involving water, wastewater, septic, and stormwater disputes. - Future assignments are likely to continue centering on system performance, maintenance history, and whether infrastructure conditions matched engineering expectations. - Property owners and counsel facing drainage or backup claims may look to similar forensic review to assess causation and responsibility.

The bottom line: - Bonneau Dickson is marketing deep civil engineering experience as litigation support for infrastructure disputes where the answer depends on technical evidence.