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Orange council hears flood-gauge rollout and sewer operations briefing ahead of FY2027 budget
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Summary
Staff updated council on a 20‑gauge flood-monitoring network and city sewer operations — including lift‑station renovations, a wastewater dump-station revenue stream, and a capacity/flow study — and outlined how the findings feed into the FY2027 capital-improvement and budget timeline.
City staff presented two infrastructure briefings Wednesday that officials said will inform the FY2027 budget and future capital planning.
Marvin Benoit, the city’s building official and floodplain administrator, described a newly installed flood-gauge program of 20 signs (designated FIDO 1–FIDO 20) placed in flood-prone parts of Orange. Each sign includes a QR code that links to the Forerunner platform; residents and staff can upload geolocated photos and water-level observations to provide real-time situational awareness. Benoit said the system will not prevent flooding but should improve public awareness and provide officials with community-sourced data during storm events.
Adam Jack and Gavin Victoria briefed the council on sanitary‑sewer operations and needs tied to the FY2027 budget. They said the city maintains approximately 60 lift stations, roughly 170 miles of gravity sewer and about 95,000 linear feet of force main. Staff reported average daily flow of about 3,000,000 gallons per day, storm flows near 6,000,000 gpd and a plant capacity of roughly 7,000,000 gpd. Jack and Victoria described recent investments — 12 renovated lift stations (about 20% of the system), repairs to secondary clarifiers, and newly approved generators for the wastewater treatment plant — and explained the need for a capital-improvement program to prioritize emergency‑avoidance maintenance. They also reported a contract with Infomark LLC to operate lift stations and the plant and said the city expects to collect nearly $500,000 in revenue last year from treating sewage brought from other locations at the Simmons Drive dump station.
On questions from council, staff recommended targeted smoke testing to find illicit storm-to-sewer connections, outlined a plan to expand alarm/notification coverage for lift stations and gave a broad retrofit cost estimate for adding automatic alerts to individual stations (roughly $10,000–$40,000 per lift station, depending on type). The city manager said the results of an expansion study and the flood/sewer findings will feed into the budget cycle beginning in April and into the capital planning process.
