Fairfield to start lining sewer mains

Motorists in Fairfield should be mindful of wastewater department workers who will begin fixing city sewer mains today and will continue their work for the next two weeks.

Wastewater superintendent Shawn Worley said today the crews won?t block off streets entirely although they will probably block one lane of traffic while they work. They will be fixing leaky mains using a fairly new technology that allows them to spray plastic into a line, which fills cracks in the old line and hardens into a rigid lining.

The city has been using the technique for a few years and it has saved the city considerable time and money. Worley said the city no longer has to dig up every main that has sprung a leak, resulting in costly street repairs and employee time. The city uses a machine that propels the plastic through the line with water and steam. The plastic hardens to form a new liner that rests inside the old one.

Worley said this kind of plastic liner should last 40-50 years before it has to be replaced or relined.

The city will line almost a mile of sewer mains in the next two weeks. Worley said the old technique of digging through a street to get to the main would have taken the city three months to do the same amount of work.

Worley said the focus of this round of sewer line repairs is stopping storm water infiltration. He said the wastewater treatment facility has a problem treating all the sewage that arrives during a rainstorm because so much of the rain is entering the sanitary sewer through cracks, which then forces the wastewater treatment facility to dump the overflowing and untreated sewage into a creek.