City plans to clean examine sewer line section by section

by Nathan Arneal
Published 4/12/23

In anticipation of a new sew-er plant in the near future, the North Bend City Council is trying to get the current sewer lines in the best shape they can be.

The city asked PeopleSer-vice, the company that operates North Bend’s water and sewer system, to submit a bit to jet and clean the sewer lines.

PeopleService suggested breaking the town into multiple sections and doing one section at a time. It also suggested not only jetting the lines but send-ing a video camera through the lines to look for damage.

Most of town was jetted and videoed shortly before the 2019 flood at a cost of about $100,000. Since then, the flood and ensu-ing drought – which promotes tree root growth that can breach the sewer lines – have rendered that information all but useless.

PeopleService proposes to start with what it called Zone 1, the west end of town to about Walnut Street. The bid was around $10,000 for the jetting and another $16,000 to run a camera through what comes out to 11,441 linear feet of sewer lines.

“It’s super expensive,” city clerk Theresa Busse said, “but it’s the only way you know what’s wrong with anything un-derground.”

PeopleService suggests doing one section of town every year to make sure the sewer lines are properly maintained. Busse said that is not usually the way North Bend has handled its lines.

“We tend to be reactive rath-er than proactive,” she said.

“Every time there’s a backup, we have them come out and jet it and clean it and we’re good again.”

Councilman Alex Legge point-ed out that the total cost will not just include the expense of jet-ting and videoing the lines, but also repairing the damage the cameras find. He suggested that the repairs could be folded into a bond issue along with the new sewer plant.

Busse said there is enough money in the city’s sewer ac-count to pay for the first zone of town.

“But after that we wouldn’t,” she said. “We’d have to get seri-ous about a bond.”

Councilman Chuck Krenzer was absent, but the rest of the council unanimously approved PeopleService’s bid to jet and video the western zone of town.

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