Information gathering and preventative maintenance is just one way Peoria Public Works can better protect and prolong the lifespan of the City’s more than 200 miles of storm sewers.

Over the past nearly 18 months, the Engineering Division’s televising team has inspected around 1,500 pipes which is about 300,000 feet of stormwater infrastructure. That’s around 57 miles of pipes ranging in size from 10 to 84 inches. Still, the team estimates there are more than 4,500 pipes to be inspected.

How Workers See Inside
As with every pipe in the City, workers use a robot and video camera to travel the distance of the pipe in search of cracks, breaks, and separations. The work is essential for our underground infrastructure as it helps locate issues – which can be addressed while they are smaller issues instead of waiting until the pipe fails causing a larger, more expensive repair.

Plus, all of the information gathering helps yield better decision making in the design and construction phases of future projects.

You can see how this work is performed here in the following photos:

Workers release and open the storm sewer inlet.

Workers lower a camera toting robot into the sewer.

Workers use the robot to enter into the storm sewer and record the findings via its mounted video camera.

Workers review the findings and record their notes for future use.

Once a site is recorded, workers continue to advance to other storm sewers and pipes on their planned route map.

In an ideal situation as displayed in the photos above, the storm sewer pipe will be open and free for storm water to pass through the pipe, however, sometimes blockages are discovered such as bricks, bits of concrete, and trash.

In the event damages are discovered – workers communicate with the storm sewer team in the Operations and Engineering Division to schedule necessary repairs.

You can learn more about our preventative work and maintenance here in peoriastormwater.com.