BEATRICE – It’s the final week for a long-time veteran of city government and public works in Beatrice.  Water Superintendent Steve Kelley is capping a five-decade career with the Beatrice Water Department.


Just how much work he’s been involved in or supervised over the years, became evident with a map showing the locations of repaired or newly installed water mains over the years.


It basically covers pretty much all of the core of the city.  "You probably see why we're having fewer and fewer watermain breaks...and the only ones we're really seeing are on the old cast iron (pipes) that are left. We still have about ten miles left of four-inch cast iron. I can't tell you how many miles of six, eight, ten and twelve-inch we have...but we still probably have about 30-to-40 miles of cast iron yet in the system."


Wayne Rickers of the Water Department, who is also retiring, put together the information for the map…..marking new water mains in red….and replacement projects in yellow….on the color-coded map. It shows projects since 1972. The City of Beatrice began using PVC pipe in 1974. The first plastic water main installed was on May Street from 13th to 16th….and on 13th from Grant to High Street.


Kelley said it was a bit overwhelming to see the amount of work that’s been done. "I didn't realize it was that much. I know we've put a lot of water main in, over the last 50 years....and it's a big chunk of the center part of town...that's for sure."


One of the last projects going on during Kelley’s tenure as Superintendent has been the painting of the interior of the city’s south water tower…which will likely come back online at the end of this week.


Kelley said one thing he’s really proud of is having no deficiencies over the past nine years from periodic sanitary surveys of the water system, done every three years. He says that’s very unusual for any water system.