Purpose

Overview

The main purpose of the City's storm sewer system is to convey rainwater to ditches, ponds, creeks, or the Arkansas River. There are miles of storm sewer pipes, and manholes, inlets and catch basins to maintain just like the sanitary sewer system. The majority of the sanitary sewer pipe is 8" diameter and is typically considered to have a lower volume of water.

Processes

The Sewer Maintenance Division cleaning crews use the flusher trucks to flush water into the sanitary system through the manholes to help move solids and debris.

The process also helps locate potential problems or stoppages in the city's sewers before it can affect a building sewer service. The cleaning crews also use Vactor Trucks to clean and remove debris from the sanitary sewers. Catch basins and inlets are intended to receive storm water into the system.

Complications

Unfortunately, these basins and inlets plug when the storm water carries various debris such as sand, dirt, rocks, grass clippings, leaves, sticks, cups, and plastic bags to the inlets and grates. The sewer maintenance cleaning crews use the Vactors to clean and remove debris from the basins and inlets.

The inspection crew has responsibilities regarding the sanitary and storm sewers, to video inspect sewers and manholes for structural defects, gather field information such as pipe sizes, manhole size, inlets, enter field data then transfer video inspection data to software for future reference.