Wastewater industry provides fertile opportunities for growth
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — At least once every five years, metropolitan Milwaukee’s water authorities snake high-definition video cameras through every inch of the entire 300-plus mile network of dank and dirty underground sewers.
The footage might be as monotonous and unsexy as it gets, but the business of inspecting, unblocking and rebuilding the world’s sewers is a major industry that’s flush with growth, as a dozen or so of metro Milwaukee’s water engineering companies can attest.
“Everyone knows the industry exists, but very few really know how big it is,” said Kevin Witt, a senior executive at UTech Environmental Manufacturing Supply Inc.
Most folks have little reason to think about sewers unless their basements back up. But wastewater treatment requires a colossal network of infrastructure that’s prone to all sorts of obstructions, leaks, tree roots and even the occasional alligator in some parts of the world.
The thousands of parts and products in U-Tech’s catalog include high-definition cameras with built-in search lights that can creep 500 feet into a pitch-dark sewer and read the date on a penny. U-Tech also holds patents on indestructible aluminum pipes, root saws, pumps with garbage-disposal-like grinders and even vacuum cleaners mounted on large trucks to clean out sewers.
Because it’s at capacity, UTech needs to buy up nearby machine shops and manufacturing facilities to accommodate its growth. The privately held company, with $12 million in annual sales, is now up to seven facilities, mostly clustered around its main offices in this Milwaukee suburb.
“Every year or two, we have to add another 5,000 or 10,000 square feet or add another facility,” U-Tech founder Pete Utecht said.
Worldwide, the market for treating dirty water is growing more than 10 percent a year, according to the industrial analysis group BCC Research. Measuring 40 major nations, the wastewater industry will exceed $93 billion in 2016, up from $57 billion in 2011.
Population growth, urban sprawl and environmental regulations all fuel growth in the sewer business, said Kevin Shafer, executive director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. But aging pipelines also are a major reason. The most ancient sewers in Milwaukee are 140 years old. The oldest are made of brick and need to be relined with an epoxy resin.
“That’s why cameras are so important,” said Shafer, noting that inspections are easier with cameras than humans. “This is a very efficient way to make sure your assets are operating the way they are meant to.”
Milwaukee has been a pioneer in sewage entrepreneurship since 1926, when the precursor to the sewage district figured out a way to collect the microscopic organisms used to treat wastewater and convert them into fertilizer. The sewage district sells $7 million to $8 million of Milorganite across the United States and Canada every year.
Today, the metro region has its own cluster of at least a dozen sewer technology companies, not including the legions of plumbers and drain-cleaning services.
In Oconomowoc, HammerHead Trenchless Equipment specializes in “pipe bursting” — a process of smashing failing old pipes and sliding new ones into their place. Vector Technologies Ltd. in Milwaukee also builds industrial-sized vacuums that can clean sewers. Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation Inc. makes systems that manage wastewater treatment. Visu-Sewer Inc. in Pewaukee, Aries Industries Inc. in Waukesha and Michels Corp. in Brownsville are major pipeline maintenance contractors.
Metro Milwaukee’s business leaders have spent the last five years marketing the region to the world as a hub of water technology, leveraging an existing cluster of water engineering companies and adding a slew of university research programs. But their efforts are focused mainly on the clean and green industries that deliver drinkable water to faucets — with all the sensors, science and filtration systems that go with it. Civic leaders argue that water technology has become the fastest growing economic opportunity the city has seen in decades.