MISSOULA – Missoula’s stormwater utility is looking to get some improvements, even as officials say the infrastructure handled our recent flood season well.
Utility superintendent Bob Hayes says a new plan to perform some deferred maintenance is in the works, and its available for the public to inspect. The city’s stormwater utility involves 9,000 storm drains and four levees, among other infrastructure.
Hayes says the maintenance that has taken place at this point has been in response to problems, but the Montana Department of Environmental Quality permit requires proactive maintenance.
The facility plan will work through checking each storm drain so that they each get cleaned out and checked every five years.
Hayes says the utility handled the flood season well for the most part but also gave the planners some ideas about where maintenance could best be done first.
“Things like, we’re going to have to repair this facility or add to another facility, or in one case we had kind of a washout if you will. We’re going to go in there that is on the ground and actually put in a pipe so that it doesn’t wash that out anymore,” he said.
Haynes told MTN News that in the next month or two the utility will release their final cost estimates and whether or not rates will change.
