For many years, New Canaan’s Department of Public Works has been using a vacuum truck consisting of an old plow truck built in 1980 with a vacuum engine built in 1967. Soon, that will be replaced.
In its stead, the town is getting a 2016 stainless steel, “top of the line” vacuum truck, said Mose Saccary, the town highway superintendent. The new truck costs $276,121.88, with a trade-in of the current truck of $1,121.88, with the town paying $275,000. The Board of Selectmen at its Tuesday meeting approved the purchase.
The truck will allow the town to do “high pressure excavation” in which dirt around a buried object like a sewer line or power line could be watered and then slurped away to make it easier for work crews to examine the line, he said.
But the larger job of the vehicle is to pick up leaves during the town’s annual leaf pickup days along residential streets. After residents rake a line of leaves to the curb, the vacuum truck sucks them up and dispatches them to a municipal compost pile.
The truck can also be used to clean catch basins of street sewers. It can hold 13 square yards of mud or leaves — about the same as the current truck.
The truck itself, from Freightliner of Hartford, is due to arrive in November. The vacuum should arrive a little later, Saccary said.