Welcome to the Department of Public Works website. The Public Works Department is responsible for the approval, construction, and maintenance of public facilities, streets, sidewalks, and street trees; parking lots; storm drains; the administration and operation of the landfill and water quality control plant; and administration of the National Flood Insurance Program.
Engineering Division - The Engineering Division is responsible for the engineering and management of capital improvement projects for city-owned infrastructure and facilities, and the approval of private development as it impacts the city right-of-way and city property. The division is also responsible for the administration of the National Flood Insurance Program regulations for private development in the identified flood hazard areas in the City.
In order to address community concerns regarding flooding and environmental preservation on San Francisquito Creek, the City of Palo Alto has worked with neighboring jurisdictions to create the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority.
Engineering's annual Street Maintenance Project's purpose is to improve the integrity and service life of City-owned streets. Visit the Street Resurfacing website for more information on this project.
Environmental Compliance Division - The Environmental Compliance Division, dedicated to reducing pollution to local waterways, maintains pretreatment and regulation programs to control industrial and commercial discharges and a pollution prevention group active in industrial, commercial, and public outreach.
Equipment Management Division - The Equipment Management Division monitors, maintains and repairs a fleet of 600 vehicles and equipment.
Operations Division - The Operations Division is responsible for ongoing maintenance of city streets, sidewalks, trees, traffic control devices, street cleaning, graffiti and storm drains. In addition, the Operations Division operates the landfill including the composting area, the household hazardous waste events and provides oversight of the refuse and recycling hauler and the recycling program.
The Streets Maintenance section is responsible for repairing potholes, base failures, cracks in the road, temporary repairs to sidewalks and roadside clearing of vegetation that impedes the flow of traffic.
The Street Sweeping Section is responsible for keeping Palo Alto's streets clean with its fleet of street cleaners, thereby preventing harmful contaminants from entering the city's storm drain system. Palo Alto has installed creek monitoring devices. These devices constantly feed back creek level information. The images generated from this data can be monitored by residents.
The Palo Alto Graffiti Management Program comprehensively addresses the removal and reduction of graffiti within the City limits.
Through its sidewalk replacement program, the Public Works Operations Division hires contractors to repair and replace sidewalk and improve access for disabled people within designated areas each year. The City attempts to obtain economical bid prices by restricting the work to these designated areas. Additionally, an in-house crew is available for "hot-spot" repairs.
The Tree Section of Operations is responsible for maintaining all City street trees including planting, trimming, and removals. This section is also responsible for inspections of street tree protection when contractors do work on city trees.
The landfill, scheduled to close in 2011, is under the direction of the Operations Division. It is open to residents seven days a week, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for waste disposal.
The Palo Alto Recycling Program helps Palo Alto residents, schools and businesses limit garbage costs and conserve natural resources. The program encourages people to reduce, reuse and recycle to decrease the amount of waste going to our landfills.
The Public Works Operations Division also manages the hazardous waste programs for the City of Palo Alto. This includes management of City generated wastes as well as providing sound disposal options for residents and small businesses.
Water Quality Control Plant - The Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant (RWQCP) treats wastewater from the East Palo Alto Sanitary District, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Stanford.
