The City of Roseburg is tucked in southern Oregon’s forested Umpqua River Valley. The community of about 25,000 residents is expanding, and its urban daytime population swells to more than twice that size. Recent years have brought new businesses and restaurants to the area–and they’re all serviced by Roseburg Urban Sanitary Authority (RUSA), which manages over 160 miles of sewer mains and 10 pump stations. 
Facing Off Rainfall, Roots and More
In this environment, RUSA has its work cut out for it. Kyle Bartlett, RUSA’s collection system supervisor and a Roseburg local, explains that the area sees heavy rainfall in the winter months. This rainfall becomes groundwater that creates problems with inflow and infiltration. Roots also present a persistent challenge: Roseburg has been called the “Timber Capital of the Nation,” and its wooded landscape means root intrusions are constant.
In addition, the boom in restaurants has produced complications with fats, oil and grease (FOG) in its collection system.
“Identifying grease with our CCTV equipment is something we’ve been trying to improve on recently,” Bartlett explains. “We’ve been ramping up our FOG program in the last few years. We’re able to track a naughty list of the restaurants that are discharging grease into our system, and check them annually…. If I find some I notify the inspectors.”
“I Didn’t Want To Go Backwards.”
High-quality sewer assessment equipment is essential to identifying these sources of FOG. In 2018, RUSA decided it was time to retire its 10-year-old Envirosight Supervision crawler. Bartlett researched every new system out there, intent on securing the most cutting-edge gear he could find.
“I didn’t want to go backwards,” he says of his equipment search.
He looked into Envirosight’s ROVVER X sewer inspection crawler and was impressed with its modern features, particularly its touchscreen controller.
“The touchscreen was really cool to me, and ROVVER X was the only system that felt like an upgrade.”
RUSA quickly invested in a mainline RX130, RX95 and a RX400 for trunk lines. And in the next couple of years, the Authority would also purchase a lateral launch add-on for ROVVER X and a CleverScan manhole scanner from Envirosight.
Accelerating the Inspection Cycle
For a utility that inspects mainlines every day, the new ROVVER X has made a big difference in day-to-day operations. RUSA inspects its collection system over the winter months, and was doing so in a six year cycle with the Supervision crawler. Since buying the new crawler, the team is now able to inspect on a four year cycle, marking a huge increase in efficiency. And the crew can assess mains more quickly after they are cleaned, giving operators better insight into pipe condition and necessary repairs.
In addition, the system has been easy to maintain and operate. After over three years of daily use, they have yet to send it in for repairs. “It’s bulletproof,” says Bartlett.
What’s more, ROVVER X has opened new doors for the Authority. With ROVVER X, “We’ve been able to inspect pipes that we’ve never inspected before,” Bartlett says, including lines that were too cluttered or decayed to navigate.
In many cases, RUSA’s older inspection equipment couldn’t pass through the lines because they were chock-full of root balls. The small-diameter RX95 is the first crawler that has been compact and maneuverable enough to run through them.
With ROVVER X, “We can now go into uncharted territory. That’s probably one of the biggest things we’ve been able to do with the Envirosight equipment.”
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