Algood adding approximately 1,000 feet of pipe to the Main Street water line project after a change order corrected an engineering discrepancy in the original bid documents.
City Administrator Keith Morrison said the $140,000 addition ensures the 12-inch water main replacement reaches its intended destination at Durant Street.
“With it, we can isolate the system more and feed water back to customers from different directions,” Morrison said, “Which gives us more availability in the future if we were to have any kind of issue, we can valve off and still continue to feed water from other directions.”
Morrison said the additional length serves as the final piece to provide a backbone for the entire utility system. Morrison said the project remains on schedule despite the change order. Morrison said the section of the line from Wall Street at City Hall to the railroad tracks has already been activated and is currently working through a loop.
“So what will start happening, it hasn’t started just yet, but what we will initialize is customers that were on the old line, their service will be disconnected from the old line and reconnected to the new service line, which will give them better water and better service,” Morrison said.
Morrison said the funding for the change order comes from the water and sewer utility enterprise fund. Morrison said the city maintains depreciation costs within that fund specifically to cover the replacement of aging infrastructure.
“I think they will have pressure improvements, volume improvements and I think the clarity of the water will be much improved,” Morrison said.
Morrison said crews are currently boring under the railroad tracks to install a sleeve for the line to cross to the other side. Morrison said Church Street at Main Street will remain closed for several days while the rail bore machine is in operation.
“So we’re excited to see this project come to a completion and get everybody switched over and see the services to improve and be able to have the redundancy in the system to take care of our customers and give them high-quality water,” Morrison said.
Morrison said the project should be fully completed with all services switched over and landscaping restored within the next three months.
Morrison said the missing section was included in all internal engineering documents but was inadvertently omitted during the conversion to the final bid specifications.