Historic Beginnings

In 1943, the U.S. Army purchased the small town of Richland, Washington and its surrounding area to build a nuclear production complex. The community was quickly converted into living quarters for the thousands of soldiers working at what became known as the Hanford Site. The plutonium manufactured at the complex was instrumental to the Manhattan Project, which produced the world’s first nuclear weapons during World War II.

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.

Connecticut-based Savy & Sons was growing, and the contractor needed new sewer assessment equipment. It was running a popular brand’s crawlers, but had a longstanding partnership with PRT, Envirosight’s sister company in rehab equipment, which introduced the team to the ROVVER X sewer inspection crawler.

Formed in 1968, the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD) maintains over 3,000 miles of sewer pipe. MSD’s collection system, which serves about 230,000 households and businesses, includes both older combined sewers and separate sanitary sewers, making maintenance and compliance an ongoing challenge. 

When the City of Wichita’s Stormwater Utility Division was tasked with assessing its entire stormwater collection system in 2018, estimates placed the project completion time at greater than 40 years. Their lone CCTV van set to work, but it was slow going.

Arold Construction has been building and rehabilitating infrastructure for nearly 50 years. With 65 employees across trenchless, civil, and water and wastewater services, its team tackles everything from cured in place pipe (CIPP) lining to bridge construction.

“Nuclear is a specialty niche,” explains Carl Beitner, operations manager at Elite Pipeline Services. As a contractor, “if you haven’t worked in nuclear, you won't work in nuclear without support. Safety is first and foremost throughout the industry, where even walking is considered working. And to work in nuclear, you must have conscientious, trustworthy employees and a clean record.”

When Shawn and Sara Wenner acquired Empire Pipe in North Mankato, Minnesota, in 2009, they were taking a gamble. The company exclusively worked with excavating contractors performing post-inspections, and demand had slowed to a trickle during the recession. “It was a baptism by fire,” notes Shawn.

The first day that the Tele-Vac Environmental crew took its new ROVVER X SAT II out in the field, they were scheduled to inspect for the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD). 

The wastewater industry was uncharted territory for Joseph Turley, an army veteran and president of PipeView Inspection Services, when he purchased the company in late 2018. But he and his brother, Justin Turley, were prepared to hit the ground running.