Sewer : Where St. Paul Park's Wastewater Goes
The City of St. Paul Park has an underground sanitary sewer collection system that transports sewage from homes for wastewater treatment at a Metropolitan Council Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility. Gravity sewer service lines slope away from each house to combine in city gravity sewer mains. The collected wastewater flows through nearly 25 miles of underground piping within the city to sanitary sewer line or main interceptors for gravity flow to a Regional Treatment Facility. The city is charged for the total flow treated by Metropolitan Council. We add in the costs of maintaining and operating the pumps and piping systems and charge each resident for their proportional use. The volume of wastewater generated in the city is consistent throughout the year. To avoid increased sewer rates in the summer when water may be used that does not enter the sewer system, we use the winter quarter water use to establish the sewer use and billing rate.
The city maintains and cleans the underground piping on a regular basis. The homeowner's service line is the homeowner's responsibility for maintenance and cleaning. If the city receives a call on sewer backup, we will verify the city line is maintained and flowing properly and correct any problems in the city line. We also do preventative maintenance and repair or replace any failed equipment at city lift stations. We have at least 1 backup pump and control system at each facility as well as generators and portable pumps to handle emergencies.
We have 24 hour a day communications with each site and 24 hour a day on call public service workers to immediately respond to any problems.