By CHRIS BRENNAMAN

The Brunswick News

C.J. LeBlanc is sitting behind his desk, checking a Web site.

Kingsland's assistant public works director isn't surfing the Web, though. He's checking the status of one of the city's 42 lift stations from the comfort of his office.

LeBlanc is impressed with the one monitoring device the city has already purchased and installed.

"It's an amazing machine," LeBlanc said. "This is going to change the way we do things around here."

In an attempt to save both money and man hours, the city is spending more than $50,000 to purchase monitoring devices that will let officials know exactly what's going on at all the other 41 sites.

Keeping the lift stations in working order today is time-consuming. To make sure they're properly sending waste to the water treatment plant, city workers have to constantly drive to each site to make sure everything is in working order.

The monitors will make having to physically make daily checks a thing of the past.

"We can do what it [used to require] having to send a man out in the field from this office," LeBlanc said. "The monitors put all information about the stations online."

Once the monitors are set up at every station, information about each will be sent via the Internet to LeBlanc and his workers. The monitors will even let them know when workers fail to check the Internet.

"We'll have pagers, and if something goes wrong, the monitor will actually send us a page with a phone number to call," LeBlanc said. "When we call that number, [the computer will tell us in] a real, human voice what's going on at the site and what we need to do to fix it. This is good because what if something happens on the weekend and we're not here to catch it? We won't have to worry about missing problems anymore."

The new devices also will free up public works employees to tackle other problems that may now be taking a back seat to lift station maintenance, further saving the city money and time.

"We handle every problem in this city," LeBlanc said. "We don't contract anyone to do our work for us. [When we] have the monitors on the lift stations, we can concentrate on other work orders."

Kingsland will soon realize the benefits of the $1,000 per unit price tag, he said.

"We try to run the city like a business," LeBlanc said. "If you make smart investments, you're sure to see a return on it."

LeBlanc expects the other 41 monitors to arrive at his office by the end of this week.