City Manager Mike Wildgen thinks Roger Coffey, the man who oversees all the city’s water and sewer operations, needs a siren on his city vehicle, at least for a day.

Maybe that way, people would be a little more apt to notice what the longtime city employee and his department do for the community.

“We take what they do for granted a lot,” Wildgen said. “It is not like the police or the fire department coming down the streets with their sirens on. You don’t notice them that way.

“The department is in a quiet place in the corner of the city, most of its infrastructure is below ground, but let me tell you, if it doesn’t work, you’ll hear about it from everybody.”

But soon it will be somebody else’s responsibility to make sure water flows each and every time someone turns the tap and that stools flush each time the handle is pushed. Coffey this week is beginning his last week of work with the city. After 30 years with the department, 25 as its director, Coffey is retiring.

“You know, you begin these careers with the notion that you would like to retire someday,” said Coffey, 62. “I just got to this point in my life where I thought maybe it was a good time to get out and enjoy some other things.”

Coffey said he has always taken the relative anonymity of the job as a bit of a compliment.

After 30 years of service, Roger Coffey, 62, director of utilities for the city of Lawrence, will retire.

“We just know that people expect water to be there and that they expect it to be safe and clean,” Coffey said. “We know they expect the wastewater system to just work the way it is supposed to work. You know, I’ve maintained this low profile for 30 years, and it has been good that way.”

A growth guy

But Coffey and his department have had a large effect on how the city looks. A popular saying in City Hall is that growth follows sewers. In other words, new areas of town don’t open up for development unless the utility department can figure out ways to get water and sewer lines into the area.

That task has kept Coffey busy most of his career. When he started with the city in 1975 – after serving as a water chemist in Wichita – West Lawrence was considered the homes near the Orchards Golf Course, just west of Bob Billings Parkway and Iowa Street. Kasold Drive was just developing as a road that was designed to be part of a bypass around the city.

These days, Coffey’s department is planning how to get water and sewer service west of the South Lawrence Trafficway, another road designed to be a bypass around the city.

“I kept thinking this (growth) has to stop or slow down, but it never did,” Coffey said.

Perhaps the only thing that grew faster than the city was the regulations that the water and wastewater operators were required to follow. Coffey said the department has had to be in a continuous learning mode to keep up with the evolving health and safety requirements.

“You couldn’t do it without a great staff,” Coffey said.

Big projects looming

Coffey is leaving the staff with plenty of work to do. Site selectors earlier this month were hired to begin searching for a location to build a new $75 million sewer plant along the Wakarusa River.

The project will be one of the larger in the city’s history and will be one of the more important to complete on time. The plant needs to be online by about 2010 in order for the city to have adequate sewer treatment capacity for the projected population growth of the community.

It’s also expected to have a significant impact on where the city grows in the future. The plant will allow for the first time city development south of the Wakarusa River. Coffey said he expects the site selectors to make a recommendation on a location in about nine months.

Design work also is under way on an approximately $10 million expansion of the Clinton Water Treatment Plant in West Lawrence. The project is expected to boost capacity at the plant by about 65 percent and help the city meet its water treatment needs through at least 2015. Construction work on that project is scheduled to begin in the spring or summer of 2006.

As for what Coffey will be doing then, he said he’s not sure. He and his wife, Deana, haven’t made firm plans, though he said it is likely they’ll remain in the Lawrence area.

“I really did enjoy everything about it,” Coffey said of the job he is leaving. “It is in my nature to want to try to help people. And in my mind, I don’t think there is anything more important to the community’s health and safety than providing good water and wastewater service.”

City officials currently are searching for Coffey’s replacement. A timeline to hire a new director hasn’t been set.