Gainesville city undergoes inspections, continues to work to find manholes under city streets

The Gainesville City Council didn’t have much in the way of business on the agenda for their Dec. 7 meeting, and city staff members served the council a Christmas dinner afterward. 

Water Specialist Jessi Price said that city employees have been spending their time focused on inspections and raising manholes on city streets. 

“This last month we have had inspections on our water system and wastewater system. Both inspections came back good with a few recommendations,” she said. “[The Department of Natural Resources] inspects us every one to three years and recommendations for improvement are a normal part of the process.”

City maintenance trio Mike Davis, Josh Easterday and Levi Evans have also been focusing on finding and removing the asphalt over top of the city’s manholes, which were paved over in past years. 

“We have been out locating and digging them up with this nice weather. We’re able to use our sewer camera to determine how many feet away next manhole is, and we can locate it with our metal detector. After that we need to dig it up in order to see where our next missing manhole is.”

Price says in the spring and summer when the weather warms to temperatures that allow asphalt pouring, the manholes will be raised to street level like others the staffers have raised. 

“Finding these manholes now helps us in the future when we have a problem and need to quickly access them. Our mapping system allows us to keep track of the manholes and know how our sewage flows to the treatment plant.”