By: Lydia Snow
Source: Elko Daily Free Press, Nev.
You may have heard of flying drones called “eyes in the sky.” The city of Elko uses cameras in the other direction, to get a mole’s-eye view of obstructions in sewer lines and to make sewer repairs more efficient and practical.
“The smallest one is a little 4-inch rover, and, basically all that does is 4-inch sewer lines that we’re able to drive up and look around at,” Elko water/sewer department Assistant Superintendent Andrew Storla said. “And then the other rover, that’s a 6-inch, but with a different apparatus to bolt onto it, so that it can actually go up to, I believe, 16 inches of height.”
The rovers were introduced about two years ago, he said.
“You actually have eyes underground. So if there’s an issue where you have a sewer flush that you have to do for a customer and you’re just curious about what the issue was, if you don’t notice anything you can actually put that rover in there and see the laterals from customers,” he said, adding it can look for roots in lines or check for damaged pipes.
“It has helped tremendously, because we have had some collapsed pipes,” Storla said. For example, a customer complaining of a stopped-up pipe might be dealing with a hole in the pipe and not realize it. The rover technology allows for a different angle on repairs.
