‘WE’RE GETTING CLOSE’
Grout-removal work should be done by end of March, city engineer says
The grout that has been blocking the Washington Avenue sewer tunnel since a sinkhole there was repaired could be removed by the end of this month, the city engineer says.
“We’re getting close,” Ralph Swenson told the Common Council’s Finance and Audit Committee on Wednesday. “I think by the end of March, we’ll be able to have sewage flowing through the tunnel.”
He said, though, that some cleanup will be required after the blockage is fully removed, and then the entire 200-foot section of the tunnel where work was done will have to be relined.
Swenson provided the update on the grout-removal project at the request of council Majority Leader Reynolds Scott-Childress, D-Ward 3. Scott-Childress represents the ward where the blockage is located.
Arold Construction Co. of Kingston is removing the grout, having been the sole bidder for the project, and also will reline that portion of the tunnel as part of the work, Swenson said. He said he believes the city has “sufficient
funding in place” to pay for the work and new liner.
Swenson said that the new liner cannot be ordered too early because it has a “shelf life.” He said the liner has to be installed and cured within a certain period of time or else it goes bad.
Swenson also said the contractor needs to take
exact measurements of the affected portion of the tunnel before ordering the liner.
Arold began working last August to remove the grout blockage that occurred during the repair of a sinkhole that first opened on Washington Avenue, near Linderman Avenue, in April 2011.
During the sinkhole repair,
which took more than five years, a new lining was installed in a portion of the existing sewer pipe. Part of that lining was damaged and collapsed during the grouting process that followed, allowing the grout to partly fill the tunnel and block the flow in a section of the city’s sanitary sewer system beneath Washington Avenue.
The city has been using a rented pump to bypass the blocked section of the system.
Several blocks of Washington Avenue were closed to traffic during the sinkhole repair. Amid the current work, a small section is closed to southbound traffic.
To date, the city has borrowed $2.5 million to
pay for the grout removal and related expenses. The Common Council also recently authorized the city to spend $15,000 for a study to determine what entities might be responsible to pay for the ongoing work.
The total cost of sinkhole-related work on Washington Avenue now exceeds $10 million.