To have faded lines, crosswalks, 'stop' markings, and curbs re-painted, please contact Reno Direct at 775-334-4636, or report an issue online. To request a street be evaluated for new lines, markings, or curb painting, please contact Traffic Engineering at 775-334-2548.

Depending on the nature of the call, there may be several different departments to contact. For graffiti on a sign, or if a sign is down, missing, or damaged, please contact Reno Direct at 775-334-4636, or report an issue online. If you are inquiring about Neighborhood Watch signs, these are actually purchased privately by the neighborhood or Home Owners Association and can be requested by calling National Neighborhood Watch at 1-888-669-4872. After the signs are purchased, they can be installed by the City of Reno by calling Reno Direct at 775-334-4636. To request your street be evaluated for a new sign, please contact our Traffic Engineering department at 775-334-2548.

The City of Reno follows the Regional Snow Plan in which streets are given a priority level from 1 to 4 as to when they will be plowed or sanded. The most traveled streets are plowed or sanded first. As time allows, the lesser traveled streets are then maintained.

To request your street be evaluated for repaving, please contact our Capital Projects Division at 775-334-2548.

For items or spills in the roadway, please contact Reno Direct at 775-334-4636, or report an issue online.

The City of Reno has a set amount of funding it can use for specific projects such as Crack Sealing, Slurry Sealing, and Reconstruction. If the street is too damaged, it will need full reconstruction and can be placed on a waiting list to be completed when the funds are available. Crack Sealing and Slurry Sealing are done on streets which are still in decent shape as preventative maintenance. The cost for this preventative maintenance is far less than allowing the road to become worse and require full reconstruction.

A pothole is a chunk of asphalt that is missing from the roadway. A sinkhole is where the asphalt is in tact, but has sunk due to instability of the ground beneath it. For repair of a pothole or a sinkhole, please contact Reno Direct at 775-334-4636, or report an issue online. A Utility Cut occurs when someone has cut into the street to access the utilities below. Most of these are done by private contractors. A temporary patch is placed over the cut, and these can occasionally sink. In most cases, the contractor is waiting for a permit until they can install a permanent patch. If it has not been permanently patched in a long period of time, or if the temporary patch has sunk severely, please contact Traffic Engineering at 775-334-2548.

Call 811 or 1-800-227-2600

Whether you're a homeowner or professional excavator, if you are going to dig you must call USA North, the one call center serving Northern and Central California and Nevada. In addition to your personal safety and the safety of others, calling before you dig is about protecting the vital buried facilities that supply electric, gas, water, cable and more to our homes, schools, facilities and businesses. Remember, it's the law and it is free. Refer to Nevada Regulatory Statute 455.080-422.180 for liability risk. There are fines up to $100k for violations of these state laws. USA North requires two (2) working days notice. All sanitary sewer lines and manholes are included in this requirement. Sewer maintenance personnel perform approximately 1,000 locates per month including emergency and after hour locates.

Typical proposed excavation

City of Reno utility marker

Your sanitary sewer system is very much like your water heater; you don't think about it much until it doesn't work. Sewers are often taken for granted - out of sight, out of mind - until the out of sight part stops working.

If you have a sewer backup that you suspect the problem is outside your house and its lateral, call 334-2243 or after normal business hours please call 352-4249.

As a service, a crew will check to see if the backup is in the City's main, and if it is, they will clear the blockage. However, if the blockage is in the lateral serving the residence or business, it is the resident's/business owner's responsibility to clear any blockage in the lateral line, which connects their property to the City sewer main. Several professional sewer maintenance and repair companies can be found in the phone book to accomplish this work.

Maintenance Program:
Maintaining the City's 800 mile sewer system involves cleaning, inspecting, repairing, response to trouble calls and customer service requests. Regular cleaning of the sewer system is required to remove accumulated debris in the pipe such as sand, silt, grease, roots and rocks. If debris is allowed to accumulate, it reduces the capacity of the pipes and a blockage can eventually occur. Occasionally, excessive grease buildup and/or foreign material may cause a blockage and disrupt the flow in a city main line. This can result in backups and discharging sewer onto city streets, causing a major public safety issue. We have emergency plans and crews in place to respond and clear the problem. They also clean up and sanitize any affected areas. In most cases, our crews can be on scene in less than 30 minutes to take care of the problem and keep our public and environment safe.

Routine cleaning activities are scheduled to ensure the entire sewer system is cleaned every two years. Areas that are subject to heavy grease or debris accumulation are placed on a more frequent cleaning schedule. Routine cleaning is accomplished utilizing high pressure jetting equipment to flush debris and solids from the pipes. A variety of specialized cleaning methods are utilized according to the conditions found within each pipe.

The City also utilizes a state of the art CCTV (closed circuit television) units to inspect the inside of the sewer systems pipes. A motorized camera is inserted into the sewer pipe and a video image through a cable to a system inspector. The inspector records the video and provides maintenance staff with information to determine the appropriate level of maintenance.

The City currently has three trucks assigned to cleaning out all of the 18,000 catch basins within the City. Catch basins are designed with a sump to trap debris and keep it from entering the system piping.

The debris trapped in the sump must be removed as part of routine maintenance to ensure proper operation and flow is maintained. The debris is removed utilizing a cleaning truck that vacuums the debris through a large tube into the truck.

Our crews remove approximately 10-30 yards of material per day that would otherwise pollute our river and/or other drainage paths.

The City maintains drainage facilities and open drainage ways within the City limits. Typical maintenance consists of debris and vegetation removal, burning, mowing, herbicide application and re-grading ditches.

The daily activities of our Sewer and Storm maintenance crews provide a huge, and often unnoticed, public safety and environmental service to our community.

Sewer lateral pipes connect your house or business to the City Sewer in the street or easement. These pipes can become plugged from grease, rags, roots, toys, etc. Eventually this leads to a plugged sewer pipe that can cause sewer water to back up into your home or business damaging furniture, walls, and carpets. Here are a couple of tips on how to avoid this costly problem.

• Dump leftover grease into a container, like an open soup can. Allow the grease to cool and solidify, then dispose of the can in your garbage.
• Do not place paper towels, baby wipes, diapers, coffee grounds, dental floss, sanitary napkins, or other non-organic materials into the bathroom toilet or kitchen sink. Place them in an empty container or plastic bag and dispose in your garbage. Keep in mind that wipes claimed to be 'flushable' do not rapidly dissolve, and are known to be a significant contributor to sewer line blockages.
• Tree roots are a typical problem with older sewer lines. The roots enter into the sewer lateral or main through small cracks in the pipes and small openings in the joints of the pipe. If you are experiencing blockages because of roots, your lateral should be repaired to prevent the roots from entering the pipe or place the lateral on a routine maintenance cleaning schedule to keep the roots out of the pipe.
• Do not flush unwanted prescription drugs - Studies have shown that the drugs are not removed by sewage treatment plants and have the potential to enter surface and ground waters. Prescription drug drop boxes are located in the main lobby areas of the Reno Police Department, Sparks Police Department and Washoe County Sheriff's Office. Citizens can drop off prescription pills, and over-the-counter medications, which will then be safely destroyed so that they cannot be abused and cannot harm our water supply through improper disposal. Liquids, sharps and inhalers are not accepted in the drop boxes, but residents can contact Nevada Hopes and the Northern Nevada Outreach team for proper disposal of syringes. Note: Before throwing out medicine containers, scratch out all identifying information on the prescription label to make it unreadable. This will help protect your identity and the privacy of your personal health information.

The Prescription Drug Round Up is held in the Spring and Fall each year.

For those unable to attend the Roundup Permanent Drop Boxes locations:

• Reno Police Department on 455 E Second St. in Reno
• Washoe County Sheriff's Office on 911 Parr Blvd. in Reno
• Sparks Police Department on 1701 E. Prater Way in Sparks

For information on how to dispose needles contact Northern Nevada HOPES at 775-348-2893

Visit the Sewer Section of our website.

The Sewer and Storm Systems are two different systems.

Sanitary Sewer System	Storm Drain System
Household wastewater enters the sanitary sewer system and drains to a treatment facility.	Street surface runoff enters the storm drain system and drains directly to the Truckee River, untreated!

The Sewer System

Every time you flush a toilet or run water down your sink, it ends up in the sewer system. The sewer system carries this waste water through a network of pipes to the waste water treatment facility. The City's sewer system consists of 800 miles of pipes, 18,250 manholes and 28 pumping stations. The sewer main pipes are owned and maintained by the City, lateral pipes which run from a home or business to the City sewer main, are owned and maintained by the individual property owners. This system is essential for the health of all of its users. It is also a major safeguard for our environment.

The Storm System

The City's storm system is a network of over 500 miles of pipe, 18,000 catch basins and over 50 miles of natural drainage ditches. This system collects runoff from storm events and runoff from watering of lawns, etc. and transports the water to the Truckee River or other natural drainage areas. It is very important to remember that any material or fluid that runs into a storm drain will be headed toward the river or some other component of our ecosystem. It is imperative that we do everything we can to keep contaminants out of the storm system structures.

Plow operators plow by priority to keep our whole city safe. The priorities are as follows:

• Priority 1: main roadways
• Priority 2: collector streets
• Priority 3: residential areas

Avoid travel if possible until your streets are clear or the roads become safe. A map of our snow plow priorities is available.

Some school flashers are on just in the mornings and afternoons, while others are on for the duration of the school day. Also, some schools are traditional, while others are on a year-round schedule. Some traditional schools also maintain a summer school program. Please see our School Zone flasher schedule. If the flashers are still not functioning properly, please contact Reno Direct at 775-334-4636, or report an issue online.

There are many ways in which a traffic signal can malfunction. If the signal is completely out, more than likely it is because it is not receiving power. Please contact Reno Direct 775-334-4636 and/or NV Energy at 775-834-4444 to report this outage. If the signal is on red flash, if a bulb is out, or if you feel it is not cycling properly, please contact Reno Direct at 775-334-4636, or report an issue online. To request an intersection be evaluated for a new traffic signal, please contact our Traffic Engineering department at 775-334-2548.