IEUA will discuss communications strategies to protect its sewer system from FOG and wipes. Photos by Inland Empire Utilities Agency.
A communications strategy that involves front-line employees and builds alliances with partner agencies has been the key to the Inland Empire Utilities Agency’s (IEUA) efforts to protect its sewer system from fats, oils and grease, wipes, and non-flushables.
Attendees at AC25 this April in Palm Springs will learn about this communications approach when Lucia Diaz and Alyson Piguee present ‘Be Sewer Smart,’ innovative approach the agency has used to reduce maintenance and keep its sewer lines clean.
Diaz is Manager of Facilities and Water Systems Programs for the IEUA. Piguee is Director of External and Government Affairs. IEUA provides regional wastewater treatment, and is a wholesale imported water supplier to approximately 935,000 residents in western San Bernardino County. The agency maintains over 100 miles of sewers.
While nearly all wastewater agencies face issues with FOG and non-flushables, the problem at the IEUA became acute in the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic. The agency faced increases in deleterious materials being discharged from apartment complexes and FOG being dumped into manholes. In one case, a sewer line normally cleaned twice a year had to be cleaned every other month.
The communications team at IEUA realized that something needed to be done, but they eschewed the normal approach of creating and disseminating the customary clean sewer “dos and don’ts” to customers. Rather, they involved the agency’s collections and maintenance crews in the communications planning the “boots on the ground” as Diaz and Piguee like to refer to them.
The effort involved field crews taking videos of what they were finding out in the manholes and pumping stations, often taking “video selfies” of workers performing the necessary cleaning.
“It was not top-down,” Piguee says, “but rather bottom up. We wanted to avoid the normal communications ‘silos’ that tend to develop within an organization, break them up internally.”
The videos were then posted on social media, a technique Piguee and Diaz agree was an effective way to illustrate the problems FOG and non-flushables caused in the sewer system and their impacts on the community.
“We use a variety of social media,” says Piguee. “Facebook, X, Instagram, the full gamut.” But the most effective she says has been the Nextdoor app, a network where homeowners, renters and others communicate directly with each other about neighborhood issues.
The information obtained through the videos then serves as the basis for messages in other media including print materials, media advertising, and other digital formats.
The IEUA communications team also got creative. They used the agency’s large combo sewer cleaning trucks as rolling billboards, each vehicle carrying the Be Sewer Smart message. They took the campaign to community meetings and gatherings. They created a ‘FOG Can Lid’ residents could use to cap household grease, store it until it solidified, then properly dispose of it. They continue to seek out other creative ideas.
The team shared these communications tools in their periodic meetings with communicators from partnering agencies.
“We reached out to these partners, shared the tactics and graphics, leveraging the partnership,” says Piguee.
The creative communications approach has not only broadcast the clean sewer message throughout the area but also brought the various communicator and audience groups together. Diaz notes that the message resonates with customers because clean sewers protect the infrastructure the public has invested in and help keep their sewer and water rates lower.
“People are not offended,” Piguee says. “They just want to be educated.”
The partner agencies have a vested interest in the infrastructure, as well, and Piguee and Diaz feel the regular meetings and shared materials not only amplify the messages and make them consistent but assure that all stakeholders feel included and are on the same page.
The most significant impact, however, might be on the agency’s employees themselves. Diaz and Piguee feel they’ve made their communications come full circle by involving the collections team in the project.
“They feel it, they see it,” Diaz says.
The two report that the ‘boots on the ground’ were a little reluctant at first, but now they know their voices are being heard, and they love being ‘social media stars.’
My Profile
