Yellowknife (Apr 02/03) - Be careful what you flush and watch what you send down the drain.

Yellowknife taxpayers paid more than usual for sewer maintenance this year but city crews say the problem could have been avoided with a little common sense.

The city's central sewer system carries 1.5 million gallons of water waste a day from every faucet, shower and flushed toilet in the city. Jim Walton, who manages the sewers for the city's public works department, said it's the lines between homes and the main system that cause his crews the biggest headache.

Walton said he's seen a lot of strange things in the sewer lines, but the two biggest culprits are ice and grease.

City superintendent Mike Elgie said people don't think enough about what they send down the drain.

"You can't send your grease down the drain, it clogs the sewers like you wouldn't believe," he said. "People think they can just dump it and forget about it our guys have to come by and unclog their lines."

Walton said it was difficult to put a dollar figure on the problem but crews were busy unclogging and thawing pipes from January until March.

"They ran us ragged this year," he said.

He said the lack of snow cover during January's cold snap left a lot of residential sewer lines frozen.

"The frost reached pretty deep in the ground this year," he said.

With abnormally cold ground it's of greater importance to keep pipes insulated and running. Walton said even a dripping faucet can create enough frozen buildup in the pipes overnight to block the system by morning.

The majority of problems are avoidable, said Walton.

"Crawl under your homes and insulate your lines," he said. "You can save yourself and the city a lot of money."

Walton said a big part of avoiding water and sewer issues is understanding how the system works. He said he's shocked at how many people in the North don't know how to operate their circulation pumps or turn their water on and off.

Last week he spoke to a woman who a woman who insisted her cat had turned off the circulation pump and needed him to come by and turn it back on.

"We're living in the Great White North and people have to learn to take good care of their homes," he said.

Walton said the city is constantly upgrading it's sewer lines and infrastructure. The biggest cost increases he sees in the future will likely be hiring new maintenance staff to keep up with demand.

He said he worries increased costs will erase the millions of dollars in savings Yellowknife receives by not having a proper sewage treatment plant.

"We've been lucky," he said. "Right now we just send our sewage out to the lagoon and the sun treats it for us. It doesn't cost us anything."