Public Works & Utilities

Online in 1978, WLSSD is the treatment facility for a 500 square mile area. With an 89 million gallon per day treatment capacity, WLSSD serves Duluth, Hermantown, Proctor, Esko, Scanlon, Carlton, Twin Lakes Township, Rice Lake, Oliver WI, Knife River, City of Thomson, Wrenshall, Midway Township, Pike Lake, and Duluth North Shore Sanitary District (D/NSSD). WLSSD also serves Jay Cooke State Park and various industries.

The City of Duluth owns, operates, and maintains 53 wastewater pumping stations.  Included in this number are five storage facilities with 14 million gallons of storage capacity.  The function of these pumping stations is the conveyance of wastewater from our customers to the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District treatment facility located at 2626 Courtland Street. City infrastructure also includes approximately 400 miles of collection sewers.

The Sanitary Sewer Utility staff provides a variety of services including:

• Regular cleaning of sewer lines
• Responding to emergency and routine customer calls
• Repair of damaged infrastructure
• Improvements to existing structure
• Maintenance of lift station (pumping station) operations
• Televising of sewer lines to identify problems
• Televising to inspect new construction
• Inspections of sewer construction
• Assistance to the public and other agencies with sewer related problems

Customers pay for sewage service based on monthly water usage. 

Sanitary Overflows

The Duluth Sanitary Sewer Collection System has the capacity to contain a specified volume of wastewater within the system. The capacity is more than enough to handle dry weather flow. However, wet weather and snowmelt may cause excess water to enter the sanitary collection system though leaks or illegal connections, roof drain connections or footing drains. This excess water, in turn, causes the system to exceed level of service at certain locations.

Overflows may occur during extreme wet weather events when clean water enters the system (this is called “inflow and infiltration” of the system). The clear water from storms finds its way into the system through old connections to roof and footing drains, broken or cracked lateral piping from homes and businesses, defects in the infrastructure or through illicit connections. Other overflows occur as the result of pipe breakages or blockages during dry weather. In order to eliminate the problem, these situations must be minimized.

Inflow & Infiltration

The City of Duluth removes inflow and infiltration (I&I) from the sanitary sewer collection system by conducting an inspection program to identify contributions of (I&I) on private property. Properties that are contributing (I&I) are offered grants of up to $2,150 to assist in funding corrective work to remove (I&I). 

If you have sump pump, I&I or other sanitary sewer questions or issues, please contact the Utility Operations office at 218-730-4130.

Coming Soon

Form

Registering for the Utility Access Customer Portal

 Sign in to the Utility Access Portal.  If you have used the city eplace portal for a permit, plan, or license, use those login credentials. If you are a first-time user, select Create an Account at the bottom.

Enter your credentials: Email, First Name, Last Name, Mobile Phone, and a Password.  Password Requirements include: 8 characters, an upper case, lower case, a number, and no parts of your username.  Once entered, click Sign Up.

The next screens off an option to use Multi-Factor Authentication for your Auto Pay information.  This is optional.  If you do not want to enable multi-factor authentication, click continue.

At this point, Utility Access validates your email address.  Enter the Code from the email to verify your account creation.

After registering, you are redirected to the ePlace portal to login.

Saving a Payment Method in the Customer Portal

To add your payment method(s) in the upper righthand corner of the portal.  Select the circle with your initials and select Payment Info.

Enter the payment method(s)

If you need to edit an expiration date, you can do so by editing the payment method using the pencil on the righthand side of the payment method.  Users can enter as many payment methods as he or she chooses.

Create one login as the main company login.  

Other members of that company can login using their personal login credentials and associate that login with the main company login to view records.

Once logged into ePlace, in the upper right hand corner, click on your user name and select contact manager. 

Under the My Associations portion, search for the company by name or email.  Once located, select request access

This brings up an email box that is directed to the company email for approval.  

The main company login then approves the association and can manage the sub contacts as members of the company change