Citizens Energy Group crews inspect sewer lines

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Work is still happening because of an unsettling, underground discovery a week ago: the collapsed manhole downtown at Maryland and Illinois streets.

Crews managed to fix it within a few days, and now workers for Citizens Energy Group have been inspecting the downtown sewer infrastructure. 

Over the weekend, Citizens Energy Group inspected 500 sewer structures in the downtown area, and this week and next they’ll use cameras to look at all of the sewer lines. 

The crews stick a camera inside of a manhole and can see what the sewer line looks like with the help of a tablet. 

They look for cracks in the line and look to make sure the shape of the pipe is round, rather than oval. 

So far, they have found five areas where they need to do some repairs. 

Most of what they are finding is the need for additional cleaning. 

There are approximately 60 manholes where they found grease, oil or debris during the inspection so they will go back and clean those up, according to Timothy Blagsvedt, director Wastewater Collection System. 

“The hope is, as we’ve seen over the last few days, that the vast majority of our lines and manholes are still in very good shape and we’ve identified a few defects that we need to repair over the next to 90 days but for the most part, everything is very safe and very sound,” said Blagsvedt.