Public Works Department

The City of Bisbee Public Works Department consists of a Streets Division, Sanitation Division, Wastewater Division, Facilities Maintenance, Fleet Maintenance and the Administration Division, which are staffed by City of Bisbee employees. Public Works is also responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Evergreen Cemetery, the ‘Old Bisbee’ fire suppression system, and oversight of the Bisbee Municipal Airport.

Streets Division

The Streets Division consists of a supervisor and seven full-time permanent employees plus three mechanics one of which is the Head Mechanic. The primary function of this department is maintenance of City streets, alleys, stairs, and other properties and right of ways. Typical duties consist of patching and repairing streets, repainting traffic control markings such as cross walks, repairing, replacing, or installing traffic and pedestrian signing, and controlling vegetation, which may impede vehicular or pedestrian traffic, or the visibility of signs or markers.

Aside from keeping City equipment and vehicles in safe operating order, the mechanics also help in preparing vehicles for auction for both the RICO, and City auctions. Police, Fire, Administration, and Public Works vehicles are serviced and repaired at the City Garage.

The Streets Division handles the digging of graves at the Evergreen Cemetery, and the preparation for internments by installing the casket lowering device and the greenery. After the service, the casket is lowered, the equipment and greenery is removed, and the grave is covered.

Other duties of this department include the preparation for the many events put on in the City, not the least of which is the 4th of July, and the clean up after the events. The grounds maintenance at the airport, road maintenance to the wastewater facilities in Warren and San Jose, and the cleaning and maintenance required of the drainage structures of which there are many.

The major equipment available for this department consists of a new Cat 140H motor grader, Case loader, Hyster rubber tire compactor, two Mack ten wheel dump trucks, a small Ford dump truck, older Chevrolet flatbed, a small Ingersoll Rand steel drum roller, old Ford tractor with flail mower, and an older Etnyre chip spreader. The Case backhoe is shared between Streets and Wastewater Divisions.

During the course of the past year, the Streets Division has:

• Addressed 328 work order requests from residents

• Dug 21 full sized graves

• Dug 4 cremains graves

Sanitation Division

The Sanitation Division consists of a supervisor, two container truck drivers, and a three-man crew that does the hand pick-up in ‘Old Bisbee’.

Residential garbage is picked up two days per week, commercial garbage is picked up six days per week, and a free yard debris pick-up is conducted each Wednesday. The yard debris pick-up is often coordinated with the DOC crews who operate the chipper the City purchased with a grant from ADEQ. Special ’Christmas Tree’ pick-ups are done between the week after Christmas to just after New Year’s Day, and the mulch from this is used on the rose garden at the Vista Park. At this time Public Works is researching the possibility of establishing a composting area at the San Jose Wastewater Treatment Facility. This operation would be a joint effort between the Sanitation Department crews, and the Wastewater Department employees who will be working the reuse areas.

The sanitation crew is responsible for the maintenance of the dumpsters, and the 90-gallon rollout containers used in the automatic pick-up operation. Currently, one employee from the ‘Old Bisbee’ crew is on light duty, and in the process of painting all of the dumpsters, checking the condition, and reporting those that need attention.

The major equipment for the Sanitation Department are three side pick-up automatic trucks one Ford, one Volvo, and one Pieterbuilt, the small truck used in ‘Old Bisbee’, and a flatbed trash truck. Specifications for a new side pick-up truck are being written so that a new truck can be put out to bid.

In the past year Sanitation took care of:

• 748 yard debris pick-ups

• 426 work orders

• 25 special pick-ups

• 11 Christmas tree pick-ups

For information about Holiday Garbage Pick-up Schedules for 2008, click here

Wastewater Division

The Wastewater Division consists of one supervisor and seven employees, one of which works in the Public Works office. These employees operate and maintain three treatment facilities, which are Mule Gulch Wastewater Treatment Plant, Warren Treatment Facility, and San Jose Wastewater Treatment Facility. In addition to the plant and lagoons, the crew maintains the collection system consisting thousands of feet of sewer mains, is assigned the maintenance duties for the ‘Old Bisbee’ fire suppression system, and is responsible for marking the Blue Stake requests as required.

Wastewater personnel are available 24 hours per day, seven days per week including holidays. At least one operator is scheduled to work on the weekends to take care of the necessary work at the Mule Gulch Plant, and get the meter readings from the other two facilities and answer calls. Outside of normal working hours, wastewater personnel are accessed by calling the Police Department.

In the past year the Wastewater Division has:

• Marked 253 Blue Stake requests

• Answered 617 sewer calls, of which 149 were on nights or weekends

With one exception, all wastewater employees have at least a level 1 certification in either wastewater collections or treatment. Two employees have level 2 certifications, which is the lowest certification allowed to operate the Mule Gulch Plant.

Administration

Public Works Administration consists of the Public Works Director, a Public Works Superintendent, an Administrative Assistant, and an untitled wastewater employee. All of the administrative paper work such as purchase orders, payment requests, work orders, and payroll for all Public Works departments is processed.

The ever-increasing amount of reporting required by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is the reason that an employee with a wastewater background was added to the administrative staff. As the sewer project advances, and the further we get into the requirements of the Consent Order, reporting will become more frequent and complex.

A database on the Evergreen Cemetery is being developed from various sources dating back to 1912. Requests for grave locations average four per week, and some are quite time consuming since the records accuracy depended upon the person recording the data, and the way the data was maintained varied with ach person.

During the course of the past year, the Public Works Administration processed 2,624 work orders for the various departments.

Airport

 

The Bisbee Municipal Airport is overseen by the Public Works Department. Future development of the site has been laid out in a City Council adopted Airport Master Plan, and grant applications through ADOT and the FAA have been based upon the outline of that plan.

 

There is an Airport Advisory Committee, which meets on a regular basis and submits ideas and requests to the City concerning the operation and planning of the airport.

               

 click here for more Airport information

 

Evergreen Cemetery

The City owned and operated cemetery is not a perpetual care facility, however the City has, in the past, assumed the role of caretaker, which is now an expected position. The rapidly filling cemetery has 68 full size gravesites left, and 64 cremains sites. Solid rock limits the expansion of the existing facility.