City of Gainesville gets new sewer equipment, employees work on making improvements to streets

In this final part of the Times’ three-part series about recent projects undertaken by the city of Gainesville, city water specialist Jessi Price describes updates that have been made to Gainesville’s sewer system and provides information on the city’s streets. 

The city’s sewer system services some residences and businesses within the city limits but not all. Some parts of the city are not serviced by the sewer system; in those areas, residences and businesses maintain their own septic tanks. 

Bringing sewer manholes up to street level

Much like the water valve issue discussed in last week’s Times, many of the sewer manhole accesses in Gainesville were paved over sometime in the past when new asphalt overlays were added to the city streets. Most of those paved-over manholes are under 5 inches of asphalt, and city employees have to use a metal detector and jackhammer to find and uncover them whenever there’s an issue with the sewer in that area. 

“If a sewer line backs up and anyone’s having problems, or we have a clog, we can’t get to them underneath the asphalt, so we have to go uncover them and then raise them up” Price said. 

Once the manhole has been detected and the asphalt has been removed, city maintenance employees use an apparatus called a “riser” to bring the manhole back up to street level. 

“When people see the guys out in the [city’s streets], that’s what we’re doing . . . digging up these manholes,” she said. When they finish, “they’ve got them flush, level and concreted in, so we can just flip the lid and take care of what needs to be taken care of.”

Price said the manholes are all at different depths, depending on where they lie in the sewer system. There are approximately 200 sewer manholes within the city limits. 

Another issue the city has faced is that, in some areas, instead of installing regular manholes, smaller “clean-out” manholes were installed sometime in the past. There are more than 80 of the smaller-manhole clean-out areas in addition to the 200 proper-sized ones. 

“So the guys can’t get the sewer eel or sewer jetter in there [on the smaller ones],” she said. “It saved money to put them in, back in the day, but not anymore.” 

Sewer pump stations

Another aspect of the sewer system that has had recent updates is the sewer pump stations, which pump waste from homes in areas on downhill slopes up to the main sewage line, where it flows down to the city’s wastewater treatment facility. 

“Down in the pits is two big grinders, and whenever the waste comes in, it grinds up whatever needs to be ground up, and then they have these floats that signal when the pump station needs to kick on and pump it all out,” Price said. 

The city has begun transitioning its old machines to new, smaller and easier-to-use equipment. 

“We’ve put in one completely new one because it’s just been deteriorated too bad,” Price said, “…which if you think about what goes in it, it’s pretty acidic and eats away at it overtime.”

The new pump station doesn’t require as big of a pit, and the new equipment includes all the electrical components on top. When there’s an issue, a light goes off, signaling the city employees to check the pump station. 

Sewer jetter and sewer camera

The Gainesville City Council recently approved the purchase of a sewer camera and a sewer jetter that will aid employees with sewer line issues and maintenance. Price said the camera arrived last week. 

“Our sewer lines are old and get clogged up and built up. The sewer jetter is a way to wash them,” she said. “All it does is jet high-pressured water. It can clear clogs. Roots are a big problem for us, especially in the center ward, where a lot of the pipe is old. But a sewer jetter will let us clean it and avoid problems.”

The sewer camera allows city employees to use a scoping device to run through the sewer lines to visually see inside the pipes. 

“In the past, we’ve had to hire someone to come in and jet it, and we’ve had a lot of trouble with that. It’s expensive. Most towns have their own [jetter],” Price said.

The city hopes the sewer jetter will be delivered before the end of the year. 

“It’ll be on a trailer, and it shoots the water out at such a high psi [pounds per second]. It unstops the majority of things. It’ll also help with clean-out. We’ll have different tips, like a root-cutting tip, to go with it. And we can use it in conjunction with the camera,” Price said.

Possible lined pipes

The city is considering installing a liner in some of the more troublesome sewer pipes in the city, Price said.

“They’re just clay tiles, and they come apart or they just break. The area where we’re looking at doing this is an area that we can’t easily dig up that’s been a constant problem,” she said, adding that the lining substance is similar to a sheet of batting in texture.

“It has to be refrigerated before it’s used, and they send it in the pipe. It goes all the way around the pipe and they apply heat to harden it. It’s impenetrable from roots, and it’s guaranteed for 50 years. So it’s a permanent fix, not a band-aid,” she said. “And these are the areas that we can’t dig up and replace or would be too costly to dig up and replace.” 

Street repair

Citizens’ comments about city roads and streets have prompted the city council to discuss repairing and repaving them. 

“We’re looking at hiring an engineering company to come down and evaluate our streets to get an idea of how much it’d cost. We might be able to make the updates in bite-sized projects to complete as we can,” Price said. 

An engineering firm that is working with the city on a bank restabilization project near the wastewater treatment facility also plans to evaluate the streets and give the city council an idea of the scope and cost to make repairs. 

“We’re hoping we can do that in the next couple months, maybe before the first of the year,” Price said.