re: Catch Basins 101 - solving new orleans drainage

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the driver/operator of the truck and the vacuum cannot be a dipshit however...the vacuum on those trucks will absolutely maim or kill if you dont know what you are doing. so, instead of just subcontracting the maintenance, the city does actually own several vacuum trucks, and i assume a few skilled operators. it doesnt surprise me that they can only do about 5 per day, but if they would do that EVERY day, then progress would be made. a streetside catch basin does not fill up with sediment to the lid in days/weeks/months...it takes years of neglect for that to happen

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My thinking would be that if they get them clean that the vacuum suction truck would not be necessary to keep them clean. If I were in charge of that department I would send a few teams out to inspect and clean them more frequently. Someone above said that the basin has a drain pipe a few inches above the bottom of the basin so that the debris that flows into it falls there and can be periodically cleaned out before it looks like the ones in the OP pictures. Then if those guys find a basin that is root clogged they call the truck.

It would be much easier to say ahead of the blockages than to try to fix them after, but that takes a commitment that I doubt the politicians in NO will ever make. I am an outsider so I don't know all the ins and outs of NO but from reading here for years I believe that to be true.

After the basins are cleared the city should cite any homeowner who piles up stuff on top of, or right next to the basin and causes it to clog. I had a neighbor who always put his lawn clippings and limbs right on top of the basin between our houses. Of coarse it clogged up and I told the city superintendent whose crew was clearing it and he told the guy if he saw any debris within 10 feet of the basin again he would be fined $250 dollars. Guy didn't believe him and piled up stuff the next week. The fine was assessed to him on his water\sewer\garbage bill for the next month. If he didn't pay it the city would have turned off his water. So he started putting his clippings in another location and the basin stayed clear.