Department Head: Steve Mengerink

The Wastewater Collection Department has six employees.  The department head is responsible for purchasing supplies, budgeting, and operating the backhoe in limited situations.  Supervision and daily training of  recently hired employees are also duties of the department head.

Pictured are two members of the sewer maintenance team, using a Jet Vac trailer to clean out  a small sewer line on Euclid Avenue.  This team's duties include rebuilding manholes, responding to citizen complaints, and maintaining sewer lines.  The maintenance program includes the routine cleaning of sewer lines in one council ward each year.  This plan results in the entire city being covered once every four years.

As in most communities, old pipes sometimes collapse because of ground pressure.  Three members of the department are assigned to the "dig crew," which locates and repairs blockage problems. Members of this crew can send a robot containing a camera out from the camera truck, as pictured on the equipment page. The robot travels down the sewer pipe to the blockage within the pipe.  The robot sends out a sonar signal, and a member of the dig crew walks on the surface above the pipe line using a sonar listening device.  This technique can pinpoint the location and depth of the robot, thus finding the location of the  blockage. The backhoe operator, who is the team leader, then begins the dig.