Water main moved off bridge
The bulky old water main along the South Rome bridge is gone, and officials plan to widen the road a bit.
Kirk Milam, Rome’s public services director, said city crews will mill down the surface of the bridge, repave and restripe it.
“We’ll get about two feet more width,” he reported at the water and sewer committee meeting Tuesday. “It’s not much, but we’ll probably be able to extend the turn lane onto Branham (Avenue) from the bridge.”
Water and Sewer Director Leigh Ross said the main was removed and water redirected to an existing pipe under the Etowah River as part of another project. The department is juggling about 20 major projects in addition to daily maintenance and service calls.
Crews are preparing for the second phase of sewer relocations around Barron Stadium and West Third Street.
“We want to get that done before they start building hotels out there,” Ross said in a reference to Samson Developers’ plan for a multi- story hotel, condominiums and offices across from the stadium. The company, headed by David Rome work crews have removed the old water main from the South Rome bridge and re-routed the flow to a pipe under the Etowah River, which flows below the bridge. Doss of Rome, has an option on the city-owned land that runs through October.
Design work is slated to start in October for replacement of the Woodbine Avenue/ East Brookwood Avenue sewer main. Ross said there is some PCB contamination in the pipe.
The General Electric Co. medium transformer plant on Redmond Road closed in the late 1980s, but the company is still removing polychlorinated biphenyls from the area.
Ross said most of the pipes have been replaced, but an analysis revealed a few isolated sites where PCBs remain an issue. A contractor familiar with handling hazardous waste will be hired for the project.
“GE is giving us $188,000, and that should cover it,” he said.
Crews also are relocating sewer mains at two sites along the path of the West Rome bypass. The Georgia Department of Transportation project will tie onto the southwestern leg near Black’s Bluff Road to complete a link between U.S. 27 South and Ga. 20 near the Alabama state line.
Work on the $42.6 million road started in November 2011 and is scheduled to be done by the spring of 2015.