Public Works and Engineering
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The City of Houston Public Works and Engineering Department provides many of the basic services that affect the daily lives of everyone who lives and works in Houston. Primarily, the department is responsible for all the things we take for granted on a daily basis: the administration, planning, maintenance, construction management and technical engineering of the City's infrastructure. This includes the production and distribution of over 146 billion gallons of water per year and the treatment of over 90 billion gallons per year of wastewater. That is enough to fill the Astrodome four times per day with fresh water and over twice per day with wastewater. It also includes the maintenance of the City's over 16,000 lane miles of streets, over 60,000 stormwater manholes, over 100,000 stormwater inlets, over 900,000 street name and traffic control signs, over 17,000 freeway and under bridge light fixtures, over 50,000 fire hydrants and traffic signals at over 2,000 intersections.

The Public Works and Engineering Department is staffed with a trained work force of approximately 3,900 employees under the leadership of Michael S. Marcotte, P.E., D.WRE, BCEE. The annual operating budget of the department is approximately $1.2 billion. Operating funds are derived from a number of sources including user fees, utility charges and General Fund revenue. The department is also responsible for implementing the storm water, street, wastewater and water programs of the Mayor's five-year Capital Improvements Plan with a bond-funded budget in excess of $450 million per year.

The responsibilities of the Public Works and Engineering department are distributed among six divisions: Engineering and Construction Division, Planning and Development Services Division, Public Utilities, Resource Management, Right-of-Way and Fleet Maintenance Division and Traffic and Transportation.

The main office of the Department of Public Works and Engineering is located at 611 Walker, Houston, TX 77002, one block from City Hall and Hermann Square, bounded by Smith, Louisiana, Walker, and Rusk. The main phone number is 713.837.0050.