Old 04-27-12, 01:47 PM
  #435  
K'Tesh
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Mind the Gap! (still beating this horse)

My latest salvo at Portland's Sewer Dept.


Transcription from my only on-topic reply (via voicemail) (message included a mention of his emails to me "bouncing")

Kelly Shephard said:

...Of those catchbasins are designed with those gaps so that the employees, the workers, can get them out. Otherwise they will get debris, and they will wedge in place, and we have experienced back injuries on our field employees, if they try to get those out when they were wedged in place. So, um, the..that is really the best fit for those, because as I said that they have to be able to be removed when they need to be cleaned out, and without those gaps, they would not be now be able to remove them. Um...

I would encourage bicyclists to avoid catchbasin grates when they are riding and if they are on a boulevard there because the traffic conditions of the location of the catchbasins. Uh, I would encourage bicyclists to ride over the middle of the grate as much as possible to avoid that edge. Um, otherwise, um, there is the chance to that, to uh, to be an issue, but as I said before that's worker safety and then we would stand the chance of not hardly being able get those grates out or injuring employees, whenever we did try to clean those

With that reply, then I guess we should be replacing all our grates that have gaps NARROWER than 7/8ths of an inch as they are a hazard to the employees who need to remove them every.... what?... year or two? Such as these:



I guess that no devices are apparently available to Portland's sewer dept. to allow them to remove them safely without risk of back injury. Geez, I though we were smarter than that.

I'd still like to get my question answered folks...

What is the legal standard for the gaps allowed for grates inside their inlets? Anyone? Anyone?

Oh, and there's been nothing done to the grate at SW 6th and SW Harrison to date.

Thanks for your time
K'Tesh

Last edited by K'Tesh; 05-01-12 at 11:20 AM.
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