Manassas museums 10/25/00

Center

By

Staff

and final linkage of the Va. 234 bypass.

A clearer picture of how the sewer and water project will unfold is expected

to emerge this month.

“We’re on schedule. We’re in the preliminary engineering phase,”

said Water and Sewer Superintendent Jim Johnston. He said a preliminary

set of plans due in mid-March will be reviewed by city staff and the utility

commission, and City Council will be briefed in early April.

The project will replace 85-year-old water and sewer pipes under the

street from Grant Avenue to Zebedee Street.

Waiting for the completion of the Va. 234 bypass will give motorists

an alternative route around Old Town, he said, allowing water-and-sewer

project workers to concentrate on several blocks at a time.

The aging pipes may soon be unable to provide adequate water pressure

because their diameters have shrunk from mineral deposits, which are also

being redeposited into the drinking water, according to a 2000 report.

The sewer pipes are more brittle and susceptible to breakage as they

age, Johnston said.

The project is expected to have significant ramifications – traffic

flow in the downtown could be slowed, and businesses along Center Street

might experience some degree of service disruption.

Over the last few months, engineers surveyed the layout of buildings

and their linkages to the utilities to plan strategies block by block that

would be less intrusive to property owners, such as using trenchless technology

and digging behind businesses. “There’s a lot of options we’re looking

at,” Johnston said.

Plans are being developed with input from residents, businesses, city

staff and council.

Shutdowns in water service are inevitable in a project like this, Johnston

said. The disruptions will be minimized to block areas, he said, and disconnecting

and reconnecting pipe linkages would take a few hours of downtime.

“It’s kind of like surgery,” Johnston said. The choice is

between going in with precision that will lessen the inconvenience but drag

out the project, or only fixing a little but not have the whole problem

solved, he said.

Design work will take several months and the bidding process could be

completed in the summer. The duration of the project will not be known until

the consultant’s report is made later this month.

· Contact Chris Newman at [email protected]