ThisWeek CW 10/1/2015
http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2015/09/28/emergency-sewer-line-repairs-will-cost-1-2m.html
Emergency sewer repairs will be done this fall near Gender Road and Old Creek Lane after city employees discovered extensive corrosion to a main sewer line connecting the south Gender neighborhoods to Canal Winchester’s treatment plant.
Public Works Director Matt Peoples said the $1.2-million project will take place in two phases. During the first phase, the sections of pipe that are most deteriorated will be relined. That work is estimated to cost about $750,000, he said.
The second phase will deal with relining manholes and other lower-priority sections; that work is likely to take place later in 2016.
Water Reclamation Superintendent Steve Smith said the pressurized pipe used to transport wastewater for treatment is about 50 years old and is only a couple years away from a potentially catastrophic failure.
“This pressurized forced sewer main has deteriorated from about where the Grace Bible Church is on Gender Road to the intersection of Old Creek Lane, which is about 600 feet, and then again from a manhole near the curve on Old Creek Lane all the way across the golf course to the treatment plant,” he said.
In August 2013, the city cleared the pipe of about three cubic yards of mostly concrete debris using a heavy-duty vacuum truck, Smith said, and since then, workers have been monitoring the pipes while making plans for how to best repair them.
Smith said the chemicals associated with sewage breaking down in the pipe are corrosive to the concrete liner.
“Right now, there is no emergency but eventually, a break in the pipe will cause a sinkhole and we’ll have to excavate a big, expensive section of smelly pipe in the middle of a nice neighborhood — which will take a long time and a lot of money,” Smith said.
“So what we can do now is to use a process where they inflate what looks like a long plastic sock in the pipe and then impregnate that with a resin that relines the whole pipe without any digging.”
This process can add between 50 and 100 years to the life of the sewer, Smith said.
Peoples said getting these repairs started is also a priority because this is the sewer line that will service the new BrewDog headquarters scheduled to open next July, “so we want this to precede the opening of the brewery.”
Smith added that starting the work in late fall will lessen the impact on residents.
“We’d expect that in about November, we’ll do phase one, because there are less odors in fall and winter and we’ll have to cross the golf course, so we want to impact them as little as possible,” he said.
“We have plenty of capacity for BrewDog as long as we make sure our infrastructure stays safe. With this relining, we should have a long future for this sewer line.”