The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

OTTUMWA, IOWA -- At Tuesday evening's city council meeting, the Ottumwa City Council voted to have the Ottumwa Fire Department take over the flushing of the fire hydrants around the city, a job previously held by the water-works department.

Currently, the department is short staffed, and sometimes has only six men on a crew, something that Fire Chief Tony Miller has been concerned about for sometime; and now, the department is adding another duty on top of training and answering emergency calls, testing all 1200 fire hydrants throughout the city.

"We are responsible for the hydrants because the water-works does not have the manning, not that we have enough manning, we really don't. The hydrants are not being maintained, and we are going to take over the hydrant maintenance policy. It is going to be very difficult between hazmat training, fire training, ems training and our actual fire and medical calls. We will get this testing done, get this maintenance done when we can fit it into our schedule," said Chief Miller.

Chief Miller says that in his time with the department, he has never come across a hydrant that hasn't worked, but if that did happen, it would take 20 to 30 seconds to hook up another hydrant.