DEP unveils new sucker trucks

From WNYC:

The city has unveiled two powerful new trucks that really suck — debris that is, and other sediments that can clog sewer pipes. The city is hoping to do away with having workers climb into the sewers to manually dislodge debris with shovels. Now they can work from street level by lowering a 30-foot hose through open manholes.

The largest sewer pipes, called interceptors, are between 4 and 10 feet in diameter. When the workers were inside, they had to contend with dangerous gases, wild animals and torrents of filthy, chest-deep water. For them, the new trucks are a huge leap forward.

The trucks will first be used on the 136 miles of interceptor pipes that feed into the city’s 14 wastewater treatment plants. When those pipes are overwhelmed during storms, wastewater and stormwater is discharged into New York City’s rivers and streams. Fewer debris bottlenecks will mean fewer discharges and cleaner waterways for New Yorkers to enjoy.

After Wednesday’s debut in Williamsburg, the trucks will roll to the Springfield Gardens, Rosedale and Jamaica sections of Southeast Queens, where interceptor pipes are rife with debris.

Getting there could be interesting. The $450,000 trucks are roughly the size of city buses and tricky to maneuver.

The interceptor sewer pipe-cleaning will take about two years. After that, it’s on to thousand of miles of smaller sewer pipes that zigzag below city streets. Two more trucks will be added to the city’s fleet in 2011.