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NILES -- The city began work on its $1.1 million Dragon Drive project July 10, with officials saying the project will help prevent wastewater from backing up into nearby residents' homes.
The construction is being done by Fairview, Pa.-based Pollard Land Services and is expected to take 135 days to complete. Burgess & Niple Inc., based in Painesville, is the project engineer. Sewer line work will be done on Wilson Avenue and Wade Avenue, and a line replacement will take place on Helen Avenue as well.
Mayor Steve Mientkiewicz said the city has been planning the Dragon Drive project for years.
"It was a long-standing problem with the city in the Dragon Drive area," Mientkiewicz said. "A lot of infrastructure issues that caused inflow and infiltration issues, ultimately leading to sanitary sewer backup in the basements of a lot of those homes in that area."
Wastewater Superintendent Paul Joseph said there were issues in sewer lines throughout all the roads involved in the project. He said there are main lines on the three avenues, maintained by the city, that every house on those streets connect into through lateral lines.
Joseph said when the lines on the three avenues, as well as Dragon Drive, were inspected two years ago, major issues were found with the infrastructure.
INFLOW AND INFILTRATION
He also noted that the lateral lines on Helen, Wade and Wilson had not properly been installed into the main lines.
"Back in the day, whenever they tied those lateral lines into our main lines, they weren't cut in," Joseph said. "You should have a nice, clean cut, and the lateral lines should fit nice and tight. It looked like they had taken a hammer and just knocked a hole through the pipe and stuck the lateral in."
Joseph said because of the poorly cut holes, as well as other cracks and holes in the main sewer lines on Wilson and Wade, inflow and infiltration occurred, meaning storm and ground water would seep into the sewer system.
Joseph said the excess water that found its way into the system was causing the main lines to fill up faster. This resulted in water backing up through the lateral lines, and into the homes of residents on the three avenues.
Project crews look to curb inflow and infiltration flow by pumping a cast-in-pipe lining element through the lines on Wilson and Wade. Joseph said the lining will help with issues resulting from cracks or holes in the main lines.
"It's a material that will harden," Joseph said. "If the pipe is cracked, or if there is a hole in it, it will fill that in. It goes in soft, they kind of spray it in, they have machines that will do it that will travel up the pipe and spray that on, and it literally seals the pipe."
In some cases where the connections are beyond repair, the crews will totally reconnect the lateral lines.
"We just want to treat sewage," Joseph said. "There's no sense in treating rain water. So we're going to tighten up those two streets so we're not getting inflow and infiltration into them."
OLD CLAY PIPING
The city will be replacing 937 feet of sewer line on Helen Avenue. Joseph said the old vitrified clay piping will be replaced with 8-inch polyvinyl chloride piping. Two manholes on Helen will be replaced as well. Project engineers said that the main line on Helen was beyond repair.
Of the main line, 420 feet will be replaced on Dragon Drive. Joseph said upon investigating the line, there were several "bellies," which he said were areas where the pipe would either sag or offset. Those bellies slow down the water.
"We're going to correct that," he said. "We're going to put in new pipe."
Mientkiewicz said the Dragon Drive issues also were causing safety hazards for anyone who traveled the road.
"We noticed two separate sink holes starting to form on Dragon Drive," Mientkiewicz said. "That was about a year and a half ago, when we closed the road because of that safety issue. We figured that was directly tied to the sanitary infrastructure below."
Joseph said the 420 feet of pipe would be in the area where the three avenues intersect with Dragon Drive.
"Any time you can get your sewage or water to flow more easily it's going to get to the treatment plant quicker and it's going to keep things from backing up behind it into peoples' homes," he explained.
START OF SCHOOL
According to a project schedule, replacement work will be done on Helen Avenue starting today and lasting through Aug. 3. Then, crews will move to sealing Wade and Wilson Avenues from Aug. 7 to Aug. 24. From Aug. 28 to Sept. 7, a new line will be installed on Dragon Drive. The project will end with final restoration and asphalt resufracing Sept. 11.
Dragon Drive is one of the main connecting roads in front of Niles McKinley High School. As the project is slated to go through the start of the 2023-24 school year, Niles City Schools had asked the city how the project could impact student transportation. Niles officials said the school does not need to be concerned.
"It shouldn't have much impact," Mientkiewicz said. "John Street, which is on the other side of the high school, will still remain open throughout the duration of this project."
Mientkiewicz said the city allocated $650,000 from its American Rescue Plan Act funds toward the project. The other $500,000 was local money.
The sewer repairs come as part of the city's capital improvements program. Officials from each Niles city department were tasked with coming up with long-term goals to improve the city. Another project in the city sees the lighting department installing more than 260 LED fixtures on street lights throughout the city through the summer
"These are projects that we have planned out," Mientkiewicz said. "This was about a three-year project in the making from the time we started our original planning study to the time we had everything cleaned and camera, to the time we have spent with detailed design and engineering, and now, the actually construction that's taking place."