“Hopefully, and I say ‘hopefully,’ in two weeks we’ll be moving off State Street,” said Stephen Bonner, engineering project manager. “We will have to come back to do some road repair which will take a few days, but weather permitting&tstr;and that’s a huge factor&tstr;we’re looking at two weeks.”

According to D. Robert Thompson, the borough’s director of engineering and public works, work hit rock-bottom, literally, when crews attempted to move away from the alignment of the original pipes.

“On State Street we had some alignment changes and the pipe was no longer being placed in the same location as the existing pipe due to several water mains in the street,” Thompson explained Tuesday. “When the contractor deviated from the original alignment to the new alignment they encountered rock. So we’ve spent about four to five weeks mechanically removing the rock&tstr;using a back hoe and trying to rip the rock away.

“We got within about 40 feet of Queen Street&tstr;at that point workers were about 24 feet below ground surface&tstr;and they encountered rock in bands anywhere from 5 to 10 feet. At that point, they realized that they could no longer mechanically remove it, or rip it or bang it out of there and we brought in a blasting contractor.”

“We did most of the blasting last week,” said Bonner, “but we still have a small section to do. All in all, there’s probably a 300-foot section that we needed to blast.”

After crews work their way through the rock, the project will turn onto West Queen Street.

“There’s about 350-400 feet on Queen and then at that point, we’ll start replacing the pipe in the same (original) place,” said Thompson, which is what workers did at the start of the project.

“The pipe behind Circle Drive was replaced in the same location as the old pipe,” said Thompson. “Anyone who would have installed the previous pipe would have removed any rock or anything like that. So in that area, we simply pumped around it, took the old pipe out and put the new pipe in.”

The South State Street work represents about two thirds of a $2.45 million project in which the borough will replace the existing 20-inch sewer line (the main collector line) from the Moyer bridge to Old Mill Road. The terra cotta clay pipe, which was installed in the early 1940s, is being replaced with PVC (plastic) pipe, 30 inches in diameter.

Work began in mid-February at the downstream side of the Cocalico Creek at Old Mill Road and to date, about 4,200 feet of pipe has been replaced. According to Thompson, the total length of pipe to be replaced during the entire project is approximately 6,900 feet in length. After moving off State Street, work will continue on West Queen, through the park, behind the Eicher Arts Center, down Cocalico Street and will meet at Modern Cleaners&tstr;where work has already been completed&tstr;to tie everything together.
Also as part of the project, the borough will abandon a force main (pipe under pressure) coming from a pump station. According to Thompson, presently there are two pipes - a 16-inch pipe and a 20-inch pipe - running down from the bridge at Moyer’s to the plant. Those pipes will be replaced with one 30-inch pipe.

Bonner said the target completion date is mid-August.

Thompson and Bonner concurred that the sewer work was necessitated by structural&tstr;such as root intrusions&tstr;and capacity issues with the lines.
“The engineering staff conducted a hydraulic assessment as to whether the line was big enough and made a recommendation that the line needed to have additional capacity to serve the future needs of the area.”

Bonner said that when the original lines were installed the surrounding area was much different.

“There were no homes on Circle Drive, no homes probably on Queen Street to my recollection, so it was all park land and they followed the creek.”

“What make it more difficult obviously,” added Thompson, “is the space that you have to work in now is much smaller. We’ve encountered&tstr;and we knew they were there but they weren’t exactly where we thought they were located&tstr;is electric, telephone, cable TV.

“It’s not a simple project. Any time you do projects like this in urbanized areas&tstr;they’re much more challenging then they are in open fields.”

Thompson said residents have not experienced any interruption in their wastewater service but have had occasional interruptions in water service.

General contractor for the project is Anrich Inc. of King of Prussia. blog comments powered by Disqus