MAYOR'S MESSAGE Sanitary Sewer Cleaning Efforts in the Downtown Area It has been nearly four years since the City Council made the decision to separate from a private contractor and self-perform the operations and maintenance of the sanitary sewer system. The Collection Crew in the Water Quality Division maintains the sewer collection system that consists of 90 miles of sewer and 22 pump stations. One of the crew's duties is to clean the sanitary sewer lines. Over time, the lines get filled with debris, grit, sand, and grease. The goal is to clean every foot of the line at least once every five years, which extends the system's life. Deficiencies are identified when our crews can perform video inspections on clean lines. Because of the heavy rains in the winter, this cleaning can only be done in the summer. The City's Collection Crews start at the upstream end of the system and work their way down the system, and when the crews have finished cleaning the entire system, they start over. This summer, the crews are planning on cleaning the system in the City's downtown area from May through July. This cleaning could impact you. While the cleaning efforts are usually outside of the traveled way or on less traveled streets, this downtown effort will be on the main streets and require changes to traffic patterns and detours. There will even be a need for flaggers. This can cause delays, especially during the summer, downtown's busiest time. Also, because it is at the lower portion of the system, these downtown lines are very large and cleaning them will be time-consuming. The Water Quality Division is looking at ways to minimize these delays and disturbances, such as cleaning in the early morning hours. Additional concerns may be about the noise you might have heard related to the cleaning. Our crews will try to minimize the disturbance as best as they can. Public Service Announcements (PSAs) will be published during the cleaning efforts. The PSAs will inform where the work is being performed, the duration the work is anticipated to last, the work hours, and if traffic patterns will be impacted and/or altered. If you would like to receive these PSAs, please subscribe on the City's website: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/ORCOOSBAY/subscriber/new?qsp=ORCOOSBAY_1 The Water Quality Division will be presenting a short presentation at the May 6th Council meeting to provide more detailed information about this process. We encourage everyone to attend the meeting, either in person or virtually, to learn more about it. If you're unable to attend or need more information, please don't hesitate to reach out to our Water Quality Division at 541-269-1181 extension 3565. We also want to stress the importance of caution when driving through work zones and modified traffic patterns. Safety is our top priority, and we all want to ensure that everyone returns home safely to their families every day. -Joe Benetti, Mayor of Coos Bay