City of Ukiah: Preparation Pays Off
Proactive maintenance and strategic planning guarantee the quality and affordability of Ukiah’s city-run utilities.
Ukiah’s utility services conduct regular patrols of their systems to identify potential hazards, and routinely upgrade equipment to create good redundancies and reliable back-ups—because problems are best handled by preventing them altogether.
Still, our city is proactively planning for emergencies. Coordinated teams, representing many city departments, respond rapidly and effectively to all types of accidents, as proven by the recent work of Ukiah’s electric, water, and sewer utilities.
Electric
In Ukiah’s not-too-distant past, electricity outages were long and frequent. Today, the reliability of Ukiah’s electric grid shows how far the city has come.
The utility’s preventative measures include:
- Regularly trimming vegetation around poles and power lines to prevent outages and fires from fallen debris.
- Strategically undergrounding power lines so as not to disturb heritage trees, as well as in high-risk areas.
- Routinely upgrading equipment to “sectionalize” the grid so that power can be fed from different circuits.
These system redundancies minimize the impact of outages from storms. During this year’s atmospheric rivers, for example, while millions of Californians went days without power, Ukiah residents who were impacted were back online within 12 hours as teams cleared debris and repaired infrastructure.
Water and Sewer
The work of Ukiah’s water and sewer utilities often overlap—especially during storms, when infiltration of stormwater into wastewater poses costly operational and ecological risks.
During storms, highly saturated groundwater can leak into sewer pipes, creating more wastewater and potentially overflowing treatment plants. Overflows necessitate emergency procedures (like discharges into the Russian River) that require the state’s sign-off.
Street Pipe Replacement
Recently, as part of its work repairing Ukiah’s oldest streets, the city also replaced its oldest pipes under them.
The newer pipes help prevent infiltration, reducing flows to the city’s treatment plant and saving money on electricity, chemical, and equipment costs. Also, by avoiding overflows, the city can recharge infiltration and percolation ponds and recycle water for beneficial uses.
Preparation Pays Off for Ukiah and its Residents
All of Ukiah’s proactive measures support the city’s goal of creating the most efficient and resilient utility services possible, because efficiency and resiliency save time and money, for both the city and its residents.
Through smart investments and careful planning, Ukiah is keeping its utility rates significantly cheaper than those of neighboring communities – while delivering services that are safe, clean and reliable.
Contact the Utility Services Department
cityofukiah.com/utility-services
