Agencies all across the country are struggling with their infrastructure needs. Unfortunately, news stories about street collapse associated with aging and falling sewers are becoming more common. Trying to determine when pipelines will fail, and where that failure may occur can become an all consuming effort for utility employees. Utility managers are being asked to do more with less; to prioritize their needs. What this really means is that they are accepting the risk that pipes they are not fixing will not catastrophically fail. Can that risk be managed? Is there a cost-effective way to define the risk? The answer is YES. We have been working with a method that prioritizes inspection, rehabilitation and replacement efforts. This prioritization method incorporates risk of failure and consequence of failure for each pipe segment in the collection system. Then, it develops a matrix of high-priority pipeline-failure areas and high-consequence risk areas, force ranking the pipe segments. This provides the owner with a defensible approach to rehabilitation and replacement and defines the level of effort necessary to maintain the system.