REGINA — City of Regina is about to get started on its Arcola Avenue sewer trunk renewal project.
The $3.6 million project starts construction Sept. 19 and it continues for the next seven weeks. But while there will be some disruptions, it will be kept to a minimum compared to what it could have been if the city had opted to completely remove and replace the pipes.
Regina officials Kurtis Doney, director of Waste, Water and Environment, and Allison Hahn, senior engineer, spoke to the media about the project Thursday.
The plan is to do relining of the pipes underneath. This renews the pipe without replacement, and comes at significantly less than a full pipe replacement — “approximately 60 to 70 per cent less,” said Doney.
This will restore the pipe for another 50 years and be done in a matter of weeks, instead of one to two years if they actually had to replace the pipe.
The work will be extensive, but no wastewater service disruption is expected to local residents. Doney said they cannot interrupt wastewater service for residents, so what will happen is the wastewater will be bypassed while the work is being done. Generators and pumps will run with wastewater pumped through bypass pipes overground.
Hahn outlined the timelines as well as where the work will take place. The work will take place along Arcola Avenue from Apple Grove Drive and end at the south ditch at Houston Road.
It will be done in two phases. Phase One starts Sept. 19 in the south at Apple Grove Drive, where generators and pumps will be located to pump sewage out of the pipe so it is empty and can be relined.
The bypass pipes will be located in the culverts under Prince of Wales Drive, meaning traffic on that street will not be impacted by the bypass pipe once it is up.
Phase One will take about three weeks to complete, and there will be some traffic restrictions.
On Sept. 19, there will be daytime restrictions on Arcola Avenue westbound lanes near Prince of Wales Drive, to allow the contractor to deliver the pipes for the bypass as well as the pumps and generators to put them in place.
On Sept. 20 overnight, Arcola westbound will be closed and traffic diverted to the eastbound lanes between Prince of Wales Drive and Doan/Edinburgh Drive, to install a road crossing that will allow traffic to cross over the bypass pipe.
Then over the next three weeks crews will be working. From Sept. 21 to Oct. 7, the Arcola westbound lanes will cross a “ramp crossing” over the bypass pipe between Prince of Wales Drive and Doan/Edinburgh Drive, with no lane restrictions.
Phase Two starts the week of Oct. 4 and will take about four weeks to complete. Once again, there will be traffic restrictions throughout that time, with road restrictions taking place overnight on Oct. 10 and also from Oct 11 to 25.
By the end of October, they expect the project to be complete. The timing of this work is “very strategic,” said Doney, with the fall picked to avoid potential large rainstorm events in the summer. The work can also proceed even as the temperature drops into 0 to -5 C.
If a large snow dump happens, Doney said they can work around that and that could mean only a day or two of delay.
Doney said they can expect to see pipes on the side of the road as well as pumps and generators, which will be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
People will also see vac trucks on various area roadways to support the bypass pumping, and large trucks and equipment to clean and prepare the existing pipe will be in place.
After cleaning, a large fabric tube will be inserted into the sewer through each manhole, one by one. Steam or hot water is used to cure and solidify the tube into a new and rigid “pipe within the old pipe," said Doney.
The city says this process can create a smell similar to Styrofoam or acrylic, but it is not harmful and should dissipate quickly.
People can also expect lane restrictions on both sides of Arcola Avenue, and road ramps crossing the bypass on Doan Drive, University Park Drive and both directions of Arcola Avenue. Some further communications to the public can be expected about the project from the city in the coming days.
