The excavator is vital to help control flooding.
The Streets and Stormwater Department’s 2007 Kaiser walking excavator had a mechanical failure in October of 2023 and caught fire. The equipment was repaired and soldiered on until 2025, but accrued $50,605.82 in insurance repairs. The excavator is primarily used to clear stormwater canals and ponds. Since then, the excavator had several performance failures, and city staff have deemed it has exceeded its useful life. The excavator is primarily used to clear stormwater canals and ponds. ‘Tis the season for hurricanes, so it is crucial to keep the stormwater conduits as open as possible to minimize flooding. So, the city is acquiring a second Muck from the Menzi branch in Lakeland at a cost of $671,375. The Menzi location in Lakeland has experienced staff to train operators, provide warranty repairs, and stock parts.
The new Menzi Muck has a Deutz Turbo four-cylinder, 156 horsepower diesel engine. It can spread its wheels up to 19 feet, and can operate on a 45 degree slope. The new Menzi Muck will join an older model the city has in hand. “The Menzi is a very important piece of equipment for us,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said. “Having two of them that are functional and reliable is very important to our ability to keep up with the stormwater, especially when you are talking about the major conveyances like keeping the canals clear, and so forth.” The purchase includes a 50-inch rotary mower, a grading bucket, a rear-view camera, a three-day training course, and a two-year warranty. The implements attach to the Menzi arm.
The wheels function as outriggers to stabilize the Menzi. The front wheels can turn in and out separately. Each wheel arm can go up and down independently. The wheels can be drawn in to make it skinny enough to be carried on a lowboy.
“The thing about the Menzi is it can work out on the East Side Canal,” McDaniel commented. “It is pretty deep, especially when you get north of Calhoun. North of Cherry it gets really deep. That Menzi can literally crawl down the steep slope of those banks. It articulates; it almost walks down those banks and can get to the bottom of those canals, do all of the work it needs to do, then it can climb itself back out. It is a very versatile and amazing piece of equipment. And it is very essential to what we do in Stormwater because it can go places that nothing else can go and perform work in places where you can’t get anything else in there.” For example, in August, rather than using a very large trackhoe that would have torn up the ground, the Menzi was able to walk into Cooper Pond and clear a silt mound at the discharge pipe without destroying grass.
The city’s Menzi Muck operator is Eric Morrison. He was raised on a farm and has worked around heavy equipment his whole life. Also, “Working for the street department in Pocatello, that’s where I got a lot of my knowledge of how to run more equipment,” he said. Morrison moved from Idaho when his wife got a job in Florida. The previous operator trained Morrison on how to handle the Menzi Muck, and Morrison has been running it for a little over a year. “I actually called my friends in Pocatella and told them, ‘You’ve got to check this out. It’s pretty cool,’” he said.
Since he took over the machine, Morrison has been using the Menzi Muck for preventative maintenance to keep the water flowing. He has been removing blockages from canals, ponds, ditches, and culverts. He has also been repairing washouts and mowing so the water will keep flowing through and out of Plant City without any backups. He can run the Menzi in the center of the Westside Canal to reach and handle these operations more efficiently.
“As I get more familiar with the area and the canals down here, I will still be nervous, because you just don’t know what is going to happen,” Morrison said. “You’ve to keep yourself fairly level. If you are moving into this mud and it mushes out, the next thing you know, you’re starting to tip from corner to corner, you have to level yourself back up. I like running equipment. I do. I think it is kind of fun to run it.”
When the rains come down heavy, Plant Citians will be thankful for his skill in cleaning out muck, and his enthusiasm to do so.
