Residents of the City of East Grand Forks:

The Water and Light Department wishes to ask for your assistance in helping us in maintaining the street lights in our city.

The street lights are the property of the City of East Grand Forks. The Water and Light Department installs and maintains the street lights and the underground electric lines for the street lights for the City. To do the maintenance on the street lights properly we need you, as the residents, to let us know when a street light is out, cycling, or if it is on during the day.

Q: What is a cycling street light?

A: This is a light that goes on and off periodically when the light should be glowing continuously through the night. A 'cycling' street light is a sign that the bulb is getting ready to go bad and it needs to be replaced.

Q: What causes a street light not to work properly?

A: This can be caused by several issues.
  1. The fuse for the light may be bad.
  2. The power lines to the light pole may be bad.
  3. The eye (or the photosensor) on the light may be bad. The eye detects when there is day-light, and when it is dark and tells the light when to turn on and when to turn off.
  4. There may be a bad connection in the light pole it self.
  5. The bulb may be going bad or is bad.
Q: How can it be that more than one light on a street is on during the day, or more than one light on a street be out at the same time?

A: Many street lights in the city are controlled by a single controller, or control box. There are several causes for multiple street lights being on when they should not be, or off when they should be on:

  1. The eye (or photosensor) for the controller that operates that string of lights is not working properly.
  2. The power line to the controller is bad.
Q: What information do you need for me to report a bad light?

A: Please give us as much of the following information as you can:

  1. Street light number - This is located some where at eye level on the light pole.
  2. Address the light pole is in front of or next to.
  3. If the light is on a corner, provide the intersection. Please be specific as to which corner it is on since there are sometimes several on an intersection.
  4. Is the light pole east, west, north, or south of this address?
  5. Is the light pole across the street from this address?
  6. Is the light cycling, does it never come on completely at night, or is it on during the day?
  7. If the light is in an alley, please provide the address of the house that the light is behind.
The more information that you can provide, the better chance Water and Light has of finding the correct malfunctioning light and correcting it. Sometimes a customer will wonder why a light has not been fixed after it has been called in. This can be for one of several reasons:

  1. The reported street light can not be located with the given information
  2. Higher priority jobs have postponed street light maintenance.
Q: How long does it take for a light to be repaired once the request is made?

A: Usually this only takes a few days up to a week for us to repair. If the light still is not working after a week from when you called in the repair request, please call us again to make sure we have not missed repairing the light, or if more information is needed to locate the light in question.

Q: What causes it to take longer than a week to repair?

A: This could depend on:

  1. The work load we have at the time your call came in.
  2. Sometimes we have work considered to be higher priority, especially in the fall of each year.
  3. If we need to repair the power line to the light.
  4. Weather at the time the light went bad or was called in.
Please be patient with us. When a customer calls in or e-mails a light repair request the office personnel puts this information on a work order and our electrical crew repairs the lights when they can. The correct information given will help eliminate lengthy repair times.

Q: Who should I call or contact when the street lights are not working properly?

A: Please call the Water & Light Department Maintenance Office at 773-0515 between 8:00A and 4:30P Monday through Friday. You can also reach us through email using the cities Contact Page accessible via the cities web site.
Please make sure you have all of the information listed above before calling or reporting a street light problem via email.


Thank you for your cooperation and assistance!