Council approves water main loop

WASHINGTON — City Council members unanimously approved plans to install 2,100 feet of 12-inch water main extension from the Wellness Park to West 15th Street and Marion Avenue. The project will complete a loop that connects the city’s two water towers.

“This has been something we’ve been working toward, as I mentioned in the memo, for several years,” City Administrator Brent Hinson said at a council meeting Tuesday night. “We’ve gotten in touch with the property owners, and we’re proposing a contractor be the one to do the inconvenient part to the property owners.”

City Maintenance and Construction Supervisor JJ Bell said using a contractor for the installation in front of private driveways would minimize the inconvenience to property owners.

“The problem with our department is, if we get started and block their driveway off, we could get pulled away for a couple water main leaks or some other emergency that could stall us from continuing,” Bell said. “The contractor comes in there, and that’s their main job. They just get started, and they’ll go as far as they need to until they’re done, where we could get behind a day, maybe a week, on certain projects going on that are emergencies.”

Hinson said in a memo to the council that city maintenance and construction crews would start their work this fall, with bids going out for contractors in the spring.

Bell said the end time for construction was anyone’s guess, but that it would hopefully take around a month, if weather permits.

“In good weather, I could say in a month we’d get a long way,” Bell said. “We actually installed the water main at the Wellness Park from the water tower north and then we also took a 6’’ inside the Wellness Park, all the way around. I can’t remember how long that took, it probably took a short month to run the 12-inch and then another short month to run the 6-inch, which was quite a ways.”

Although council members voiced concern over pricing and delays due to a material shortage at the Tuesday night meeting, Bell said he was not yet sure if shortages would affect the project.

Hinson was hopeful that the impact could be avoided.

“The main thing I’ve heard at this point is delay in receiving materials,” he said. “There is a little bit of a price spot market that you have to watch. This is something that, by getting approval of this now, really maintenance has four months to plan it, so I think that gives us a pretty good window, and I’m really hopeful that those material prices will settle back down.”