1. A method for monitoring level of material in a pipe comprising: mounting a digital camera in a waterproof housing in a fixed location with a lens facing a location of interest in the pipe; setting a timer interval for the camera to take a photograph; the camera taking and storing a photograph of the location of interest during each timer interval; retrieving the stored photographs from the camera; aggregating the photographs into a video stream; and detecting changes in the photographs that indicate changes in the level of the material in the pipe, wherein detecting changes in the photographs comprises performing at least one mathematical analysis of differences in the photographs, wherein the at least one mathematical analysis of differences in the photographs comprises computing an average pixel value over a predefined number of photographs and determining when a plurality of pixels in a photograph exceed the computed average pixel value by some defined threshold.