Fairfield residents reminded to slow down around Step 2 construction

FAIRFIELD - Construction is progressing on STEP 2 sanitary sewer improvements in Fairfield.

Fairfield City Engineer Melanie Carlson announced in a news release April 22 that contractor, Maxwell Construction, has two crews working simultaneously on the project, one north of Lamson Woods and the other near Pleasant Plain Road. The contractor is laying new sewer main along the northeast edge of town, from Maharishi International University following Crow Creek south and east toward Lamson Woods.

Stephen Pedrick, project manager at French-Reneker-Associates, said that, as of late last month, everything was on schedule or even slightly ahead of schedule.

He said the coronavirus outbreak did not seem to be affecting the construction schedule. He mentioned that the city is asking all its contractors to follow guidelines from the Iowa Department of Transportation and the Associated General Contractors of Iowa, which include things like offering hand-sanitizer on the job and refraining from sharing food at lunchtime.

Pedrick said the subcontractor in charge of boring under the roads has made a lot of progress. The boring under East Burlington Avenue near Chautauqua Park is done, as is the boring near MIU. The crew has moved onto Pleasant Plain Road.

'We're trying to let the public know to slow down there,” Pedrick said. 'The [boring] is not affecting traffic, but the work is taking place within five feet of the road. Maxwell has brought concrete barriers to make people slow down and so they realize there's a big hole just off the roadway.”

Step 2 construction has forced the closure of a portion of the Fairfield Loop Trail. Now, a section of the trail from Lamson Woods to Middle Glasgow Road is closed, but Pedrick said the contractor is working quickly to reopen it. He said all the sewer has been installed in the nearby Neff Wetlands, and now it's just a matter of replanting grass seed and reforming the trail. He suspects that the portion of the trail near Lamson Woods will reopen in about three weeks once the contractor has moved onto the area near Chautauqua Park, whereupon that portion of the trail will close.

Step 2 is a project undertaken in response to the city's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) compliance order to remove sanitary sewer overflows within the city's sanitary sewer system. The city's sanitary sewer system is generally divided in half, with Highway 1 being the divider. STEP 2 will complete the work necessary to remove SSOs on the east side of the system.