I got a rare look inside a sewer manhole today, as a crew from Weston & Sampson, the environmental contractor checking sewer manholes for the city, came down my street. It’s part of the effort to reduce stormwater infiltration into sewers and vice versa. It was a two-person team in a sma
ll truck, with a tablet, a point-and-shoot camera and a very long ruler. They’re documenting the condition of the manholes with photos, and measuring the depths. If a manhole ever needs to be relined, it will be relined with concrete (not brick, which is what mine, at least, is lined with now), and it gets charged by the foot. They said they’re checking West Newton and near Crystal Lake currently, and the whole city gets done on a three-year cycle.
I was telling the police detail officer how, back in my business school days, I heard that on
e consulting company-type job interview question was “Why are manhole covers round?” Before she had a chance to think about it, the guy with the ruler had the answer – it’s the only shape that can’t fall in its hole. Although, surprisingly, he told me there are some triangular covers! Not sure if he meant Newton or the world.
I thought the manhole in front of my house looked to be in good shape – all the bricks seem to be in place. And it’s mostly empty now, but this is what your sewage passes through. If someone flushed, sewage would flow out one of these troughs into another. Somehow I thought it was all pipes!
Who knew that the city streets get regularly scheduled colonoscopies?
Actually, the colonoscopies would be another thing they do, running a snake type device with a camera on it down the pipes themselves. I love this infrastructure stuff!
@Julia – If you like this stuff … how about the archaeological version?
I just received an email about Newton Conservators spring walks. One of them is entitled href=”http://www.newtonconservators.org/events/walksspring12.pdf” ‘Finding Newton’s Old Waterworks at Cutler Park’ . Apparently that was Newtons source of water in the 1870’s and it’s a walking tour of the various remains of 19th century infrastructure that you can still see in the woods over there on April 22.
@Jerry. That’s one day after the Hemlock Gorge cleanup on Saturday, April 21st. What a great twofer for that weekend.
There was also an old nike missle site in the area of Cutler Park, but I can’t remember exactly where it was or if some remnants of it remain.
@Jerry,
Well part of our problem is that there have not been nearly enough “regularly scheduled colonoscopies” for Newton’s water and sewer infrastructure to keep us anywhere near current.
Folks will complain about how water/sewer rates are growing too fast, but the reality is the rates in the past have been artificially low, because we didn’t invest in the future for this infrastructure.