Thurston County is home to the state of Washington’s capital city, Olympia. Located at the south end of Puget Sound, the 770-square-mile county has a population of more than 250,000 residents.
With average annual rainfall of more than 50 inches, stormwater management is a vital public service. It’s also an environmental imperative of the municipal stormwater permit.
To handle the huge volume of stormwater runoff, Thurston County has created a stormwater system comprising just under 10,000 pipes and culverts. The county’s system has slightly more than 6,000 catch basins.
Donna Eaton, Thurston County’s NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) crew chief for the past three years, manages a team of 14 county employees. She is responsible for scheduling all cleaning, grouting, and repair of catch basins, drywells, pipes, and culverts.
In addition to managing the deployment and use of the county’s combination sewer cleaning trucks, Eaton also manages the operation of three street sweepers. With such heavy rainfall, these sweepers are an important component of the county’s stormwater management program.
Two of Thurston County’s sweepers are Elgin Crosswind J regenerative-air models. The Crosswind model features single engine and single button operation. These sweepers run on diesel fuel and meet Tier 4 emission standards.
Eaton says that the sweeper drivers like the Crosswind. “It’s user-friendly, requires less maintenance, and is easier to maintain,” she notes. A Crosswind feature that Eaton likes is the “wandering hose on the back of the sweeper. It’s like a mini vacuum.”
Eaton says that Thurston County has about 2,000 lane miles, or 1,000 centerline miles, of streets to sweep. “We try to sweep each street once a year. We do the major arterials twice a year and after every storm event.”
The sweepers run year-round. From April through October, their operating schedule is from 6:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. From October through April, they are operated from 7:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Thurston County does not have any routes that are swept at night.
Eaton says that leaves are “absolutely” a problem, especially in residential areas. “They’re mostly maples. From October to December, we’re really busy sweeping them up.”
The sweeper drivers “concentrate on streets where there are medians with trees on them. We try to get the leaves up before they block the catch basins and cause urban flooding.”
Washington has a lot of evergreens, including pine trees. Adding to the leaf problem, the pine needles easily pass through the grates and into the catch basins.
“November is our worst month,” says Eaton. “The heavy rains come and the wet needles block the drain inlets, causing flooding. We try to get tweets out to neighborhoods, asking residents to brush the needles off of the grates when they are outside doing yard work.”
She says the biggest challenges to keeping Thurston County’s streets clean is “the weather, the trees, and the [plant] debris. We try to get things swept up before it gets into the catch basins. It’s more cost-effective to use the sweepers first [then the vacuum trucks]. We have three sweepers, but just two vacuum trucks.”
Another way Thurston County combines sweeper and vacuum truck operations is when the grouting crew has to install new grouting around the inlets. The sweeper goes down the street first to clear debris. Next, the workers remove the old grouting and replace it with new. Then the sweeper makes a final pass to get up all of the grouting debris.
Using the two machines in tandem saves both time and money. Eaton notes that the new grouting looks nice and the area stays cleaner longer, which pleases people who see it.
On most county streets and routes, the sweepers don’t have to contend with the narrower streets found in older, urban areas. No permeable paving on county streets, no wildlife problems, and no hilly areas are also advantages for the street sweeping operation.
Thurston County is meeting its environmental goals—and staying on budget—by deploying two combination sewer-cleaning and vacuum-excavation trucks that deliver productivity and versatility.
The newest of these combination trucks is a Vactor 2100 Plus. This model features such technological advancements as a rapid deployment boom and an internal water-recycling system.
“We are under a Phase II NPDES permit that requires the county to clean and maintain its drainage systems within the NPDES boundary, based on inspections,” explains Eaton. “In evaluating equipment to achieve that mandate, the county considered its service area, the types of structures and systems that we service, the location of structures, environmental factors, acceptable equipment breakdown rates, and the required levels of productivity that would meet our needs within our budget limitations.”
Eaton works closely with Thurston County fleet services to ensure that the funds are allocated to replace pieces of equipment at the end of their life cycles. “We closely monitor industry standards and upcoming technology to purchase the correct equipment to meet our maintenance needs,” she says.
This thorough evaluation process led to the recent acquisition of a new Vactor 2100 Plus combination sewer cleaning truck. This model truck includes a very useful Vactor RDB 1015 rapid deployment boom. It also has an onboard water-recycling system. A cost-efficient advantage of this feature is the elimination of frequent and time-consuming trips to the county’s water decanting station.
“Our team includes four senior maintenance technicians who operate our two Vactor trucks—including an older Vactor 2100 Plus model—with two employees assigned to each unit,” says Eaton. “The guys say they really like the ease of use with the RBD 1015 boom because of the added reach and ease of operation.”
A Vactor truck in the City of Harlingen’s fleet
She adds, “With the RDB 1015 boom, we are able to set up and tear down much faster because we don’t have to get tubes, attach them, un-attach them, and put them back on the truck. The boom gives us much better reach along with more positive vacuum suction, which cuts the time needed to clean the basins and pipes.”
The rapid deployment boom telescopes 10 feet out and extends the debris hose an additional 15 feet down for faster cleaning of catch basins, manholes, and lift stations. The boom can also maintain a lower profile, which allows the combination sewer cleaner to clear low overhead obstacles and still reach needed depths.
The boom can be stowed on the truck with the catch basin tube attached. That feature makes it even easier to begin work immediately.
The innovative water recycling system on the Vactor 2100 Plus reuses water already in the sewer to clean sewer lines. That capability eliminates the need for thousands of gallons of clean water during every shift.
“We like the water recycler because it gives our crew more options on what they can complete in a day,” says Eaton. “Our decant center is located in the northeast part of the county, and our water sources can be miles away at times. With the Vactor water recycler, we have been able to increase our production based on the elimination of travel time to decant or to refill with water. This is a great cost savings for the county and a better solution for our environment.”
Eaton says that the 2100 Plus unit includes a hydro-excavation kit. It comes in handy to help with the frequent need to repair or replace pipes and catch basins in tight areas.
“The Vactor hydro-excavation attachment removes more material faster and with more accuracy and control,” she explains. “We are able to hydro-excavate around the basin without disturbing a large area and remove and replace the basin with minimal soil removal. This not only saves time, it also saves on material for backfill. We can assist our drainage crew when locating the utilities for the digging crew, and they can be more efficient when digging around the utilities.”
Thurston County works closely with Owen Equipment, its local Vactor dealer in Kent, WA, for maintenance and training support. This strong relationship makes training and other work with the vacuum truck much easier for the crew members.
“There is a bit of a learning curve with the 2100 Plus, but it is overcome quickly,” says Eaton. “We have a good relationship with Owen Equipment. They have been very responsive to our needs, providing knowledgeable staff for information and training. They seem to be on the cutting edge of technology.”
She adds, “After we purchased the new Vactor 2100 Plus, Owen sent trainers to show our crews how to operate it safely and efficiently. They gave us one training session, and they are scheduled to come back shortly to answer questions that the crew may have now that we have run the recycler for some time.”
Harlingen, TX
Located in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, the city of Harlingen is about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Its port is about 4 miles from the city and connects via the Harlingen Channel to the Intracoastal Waterway and the Gulf.
Part of the Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan area, the city had a 2010 population of 64,849 people. Originally developed as an agricultural center for growing cotton and other crops, Harlingen has shifted to light manufacturing. The city is known for having one of the lowest costs of living in the US.
Harlingen has approximately 262 miles of streets to keep clean. Benito Segura Jr., street superintendent for the city’s Public Works Department, oversees that vital work.
To do the job of cleaning Harlingen’s streets, the Public Works Department crew members rely on three sweepers from Tymco Inc. of Waco, TX. Harlingen’s Tymco sweepers are all Model 600 regenerative-air machines. All three of them run on regular diesel fuel.
Tymco’s Model 600 has a hopper with capacity of more than 7.3 cubic yards and can hold more than 10,000 pounds. Its centrifugal dust separator performs fine dust particulate separation, which results in effective dust control while using less water. And as a regenerative-air sweeper it doesn’t discharge dust back into the environment.
The cab-over design of the Model 600 provides extra space for tool storage and allows it to carry water. Using less water, but carrying more, results in fewer trips back to the sweeper dumping station.
Segura and his sweeper drivers like the Tymco 600s because “they’re dependable and reliable. They don’t have as many breakdowns,” he says.
“We try to sweep each street, residential and commercial, twice a month,” says Segura.
In Harlingen’s mild climate, the sweepers can be operated year-round. “Snow is rare here, and if it falls, it melts fast,” he explains.
The three Tymco sweepers run only in the daytime, except for one that sweeps the downtown commercial district. That machine’s driver starts his shift at 4:00 a.m. to avoid the morning rush-hour traffic.
Segura admits that Harlingen is lucky not to have the challenges of terrain and climate that make street cleaning more difficult in many other areas of the country. “We don’t have hilly streets. We’re in a flat area.”
Mother Nature has given the Harlingen street sweeper drivers some seasonal extra work, though. In some residential areas, many oak trees shed leaves and hackberry trees lose seed pods that fall on the streets and require extra time to clean up.
As for the reaction of Harlingen’s residents to street sweeping, Segura says that it is generally positive. “We do get calls thanking us and complimenting us. We’re grateful for them.”
A few years ago, Segura and his staff members made some scheduling changes in the routes the street sweepers follow. He explains that they divided the city into five equal districts of equal size. Now the sweepers follow the same routes during either the first and third weeks of each month or the second and fourth weeks. Keeping to those regular routes has made the work go more quickly and easily. It has also allowed Harlingen residents to know when to expect the sweeper on their streets. That has reduced calls asking when the sweeper will be there.
All of Harlingen’s streets are asphalt, so the sweeper operators don’t have to vary their work in order to clean any permeable paving. The city has some streets that run by lakes, but no special care has to be taken in these areas.
As in other cities when special events are held for the public, the streets get littered with empty cups and other debris. In Harlingen, the biggest such events that attract crowds are the Freedom Fest during the Fourth of July and the Blues on the Hill summer concert series.
After these special weekends, “We’re out there sweeping first thing the next Monday morning,” says Segura.
Segura also supervises the cleaning of Harlingen’s catch basins. The city has about 2,500 of them. To do this work, a crew of two use a Vactor 6100 vacuum truck. The feature Segura likes most about this truck is that “we can clean water or low spaces on the curb and at the same time the truck keeps moving. It doesn’t have to be stopped to do cleaning. That saves us a lot of time.”
He says that the Vactor 6100’s boom arm feature is also appreciated. This truck has been such a reliable work horse that Harlingen just added a new Vactor truck to its fleet.
Segura and his crew members are excited about the new Vactor truck’s camera. This technology feature will allow them to see inside of catch basins and pipes so that the cleaning gets all of the material to be removed, and it will save time.
One of Harlingen’s three Tymco sweepers
Harlingen has approximately 4,600 catch basins and inlets. They are cleaned on an as-needed basis. Segura says, “We go and clean them every time it rains. We go before the rain if we know that we’re going to get a storm.”
The Public Works Department refers to cleaning the inlets as “grill cleaning,” especially for older inlets with heavy grates. About 24 employees—in crews of two people—work on these inlets, using shovels and push brooms.
Segura says his department occasionally gets calls from people who are frantic because they have dropped their cell phones or watches down a drain opening or manhole. “Within the hour we’re out there to open the inlet or manhole so they can get their valuable item back,” he says.
Urbandale, IA
Urbandale, IA, is about 7 miles from Des Moines and is considered part of the Des Moines-West Des Moines metro area. The primarily residential city’s population in 2010 was 39,463.
Urbandale has about 5,000 catch basins to clean. “We inspect one-fourth of them per year and clean as needed, based on the inspection,” explains Adam Pasker, Urbandale’s public works supervisor. “Of course we also clean catch basins as soon as complaints about them come in.”
To clean the catch basins and sewers, Urbandale’s Public Works Department crew members use the department’s new Dual Engine Combination Machine sewer cleaning truck. Manufactured by Vac-Con of Green Cove Springs, FL, the machine has a hopper that is the next-to-largest 12-yard size.
The machine’s dual engine permits the chassis engine to drive either the three-stage fan or positive displacement blower vacuum system. This option saves fuel costs.
The Vac-Con machine includes a 180-degree articulating hose reel that holds 600 feet of 1-inch hose. Its telescopic boom measures 10 feet in length and can be rotated 270 degrees.
Vac-Con is the machine’s manufacturer. Urbandale’s new machine was supplied by Mid-Iowa Solid Waste Equipment in Des Moines.
Pasker says that the crew members “like the computer display in the front, and the hydro-excavation high-pressure wand on the side. If they have a catch basin full of tightly packed material, they can hit it with the wand, break it apart, and then vacuum it up.”
Catch basins get cleaned from spring through fall. “Usually, we have to stop in winter. Anything in there freezes, so it’s difficult to break it apart. We can’t use water that would freeze and damage the truck,” he says. “But if we get some warm days, in the 40s or 50s, we try to get out and do some cleaning.”
Urbandale has about 500 lane miles of streets to keep clean, but none with permeable paving. The sweepers run year-round, but not at night.
“Typically, we sweep the entire town about five times per year,” says Pasker. “If we get complaints, we go and clean that street.”
One of Urbandale’s sweepers is an Allianz Johnston vacuum sweeper, a Condor 650V made by Johnston North America of Mooresville, NC.
Pasker notes that the Allianz Johnston “does a nice job of picking up leaves, a nice job of picking up dried dirt and mud.”
The city’s second sweeper is an A7 Tornado made by Schwarz Industries of Huntsville, AL. This regenerative-air sweeper includes a large hopper that holds 8.4 cubic yards of debris.
Pasker says the Tornado “does a good job of picking up leaves and it does a good job of packing the leaves into the hopper, so it requires fewer dumps.”
Both of the sweepers and the sewer cleaning truck run on regular diesel fuel. Fortunately, the crew doesn’t have the challenge of lots of steep, hilly streets to navigate.
“Our biggest challenge is sweeping up leaves,” says Pasker. “It seems that leaves are falling later and later. We’re having to run the sweepers later and later in the season, so that coincides with early snowfall events.”
He adds, “We’re having to figure out how to sweep up frozen leaves and debris.”
Maples and oaks are the predominant tree species in Urbandale. Pasker says the city also has lots of cottonwoods and elms.
Response from the citizens of Urbandale about keeping their city’s streets clean has generally been favorable. Pasker notes that in the city’s recent annual survey, “77% of the people in town said that street cleaning was excellent or good.”
