City of Mendota Heights Declares Sewer TV a Hit

Smile, Mendota Heights sewage pipes, you're on camera.

While that may be a broadcast you'd rather skip, the effort is saving both the city and residents money.

If Mendota Heights' piping backs up into a private home, the city is on the hook for the damages to things like floors, furniture and walls. To keep those costs down, in 2006 city officials began monitoring the system with cameras, called "televising." 
Claims dropped from $30,000 in 2002, to $10,000 in 2006, and to less than $500 in 2008.

"The pipes aren't wide enough for a person to walk through, but a camera can fit through easily," said Ryan Ruzek, the assistant city engineer. "It really helps us to identify potential problems early." 

Roughly one-sixth of the city's 73 miles of sewer piping is inspected each year. The city has one staff person that does about half the cleaning, climbing down manholes and pulling a high-pressure hose through the pipe. The hose clears the two main perpetrators of sewage backup: piles of sediment that build up, and tree roots that make it into the piping and thrive on the, well, organic matter. 

The other half of the cleaning, along with all the televising work, gets contracted out. Ruzek estimated it will cost at least $75,000 to clean 40,000 feet of pipe and televise 103,000 feet of it this year. The city's budget includes $100,000 for sewer maintenence. 

Ruzek said it is worth the investment, given how expensive backup can be. In 2002, the city paid out $43,000 for just three claims.

"Once sewage gets in the basement, you pretty much have to get rid of everything it touches," said Pat Rounds, co-owner of the Coon Rapids location of Paul Davis Restoration and Remodeling, which cleans basements flooded with water or sewage. 

To inspect the sewers, workers string a remote-controlled camera along a cable hooked up between manholes, which are about 30 feet apart. The camera company analyzes the tape and gives a report to the city, identifying cracks in the sewers, dirt that gets in the pipe, houses or businesses making illegal connections, grease being discharged by factories and other issues that can cause backups. 

Ruzek said city officials usually don't sit down and review all the tape themselves, but it keeps the footage on DVDs or a hard drive and can go back and look at areas of the pipe that later become problems. 

"It's really about stopping raw sewage from (entering) people's homes," Ruzek said. "It usually comes up through a floor drain in the basement, and if it's in a laundry room it may not be a problem, but most homes have furnished basements with finished floors and furniture. And if it makes it to a finished wall, then you can have problems with mold. Maintaining our infrastructure is good for people and it saves the city money."