This afternoon, myself, councilors and some staff were given a tour of our water and sewer system by Public Works Superintendant Norm Carlson. I’ve often wondered what lurks behind the doors of those lift station buildings and in particular, the screening plant. Hmmm, very interesting you say… well, we had to hold our noses a bit while in the screening plant. The whole point of the exercise was to educate us about the condition of this infrastructure. Some of it is very old and will need replacing soon. We all know that Dawson’s needs are special (wink), even when it comes down to the sewage system since we are the only community that has to deal with permafrost and the forces that it exerts on the pipes buried within it.
The tour reinforced what we already knew, that Norm and his crew are doing an incredible job keeping this whole system going, rebuilding pumps, replacing pumps, going down into those deep, dark well-like casings to replace and maintain equipment in an environment that can be dangerous. They are the unsung heros while we happily flush away our stuff down the toilet everyday, oblivious to what it takes to keep things moving and treated properly in an environmentally responsible manner.
Next week we’ll be given a tour of the water supply side of the system.
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