North Little Rock Wastewater purchased a new sewer cleaning truck earlier this month to replace an aging truck that was in the fleet for over 10 years.
NLRW Maintenance and Construction crews clean over 1.3 million linear feet of sewer lines each year using specialized combination vacuuming and jetting trucks, the oldest of which was a 2012 Vac-Con model that served over 12,000 hours cleaning more than 2 million feet of sewer mains. With this truck approaching the end of its useful life, the Wastewater Committee approved the $500 thousand dollar purchase of a new one to meet NLRW’s reliability and productivity needs.
Public sewer line cleaning is a vital part of NLRW’s commitment to customers, the community, and the environment. It is the most important short-term means of preventing sanitary sewer overflows and a key element of maintaining the sewer system. From cooking oils to sand to tree roots, debris inevitably builds up in sewer lines over time. Regular cleanings remove buildup before it becomes too obstructive, and emergency cleanings resolve issues caused by obstructions.
To select the best replacement, NLRW cleaning crew chiefs demoed four trucks and landed on Vactor’s 2100i model as the most user-friendly and best suited to NLRW’s needs.
The new combination cleaning truck is one of five used by the Maintenance and Construction Department to maintain public sewer lines and address public sewer malfunctions. The old Vac-Con will spend its retirement in the Operations Department, where it will see a much lighter workload upkeeping NLRW water reclamation facilities.
