Winner to receive $1,000 prize
Grant Burroughs has worked at
Big Sky Water and Sewer for 16 years. In his travels, the wastewater Superintendent always looks at
manhole covers.
“I’ve noticed a lot of different
styles,” he says. “There are some
really cool ones out there.” It really
came home when he noticed Bozeman’s manhole covers, which have
the city’s seal of a horse drawn cart.
“I saw those lids and got to thinking maybe it’d be neat to re-design
ours.”
Big Sky’s standard lid reads
WSD363—pretty boring.
Burroughs approached the Board
of Directors of the Big Sky Sewer
District with an idea: hold a contest
for the best design. The Board agreed
to the idea, and together, they came
up with a set of rules and a prize for
the winning design: $1,000.
Burroughs says the city of Spokane
held a similar contest, and an eight-
year old girl won.
Big Sky’s cash prize will come from
the Sewer reserve fund. The new
lids will cost the same as the current
standard, Burroughs says. He’ll send
a drawing of the winning design to
the foundry, and once they have the
mold made, the price is the same.
The intent isn’t to replace every
manhole lid—but many of Big Sky’s
manhole covers are 35 years old,
and Water and Sewer replaces 10-15
of them a year, also providing new
lids any time a developer builds a
sewer extension.
The District will accept design submittals until April 25, 2011. A panel
consisting of community members
and District representatives will
hold a blind judging.
bigskywatersewer.com/lidcontest.htm
