During a recent water line leak that was discovered by the City of Bridgeport, workers tasked with making the fix found additional problems. And now those additional problems are being addressed.

 

A Bridgeport work crew from the city’s Public Works Department is currently doing a water line replacement project along the eastbound lane of U.S. Route 50, City Engineer Tom Brown said.

 

“When we worked on the other broken water line our crews were putting line back and noticed there was scaling on additional line,” said Brown. “We knew that was going to be a problem and did some further investigation. As it turns out, about 300 feet of line is needing to be replaced.”

 

Work on that replacement is going full force today on Main Street. Motorists who head past Oliverio’s and toward Mike Mason’s Chiropractic Care Center will see the heavy construction equipment. Traffic in the area is currently at one lane.

 

“There will be some minor delays,” said Brown. “We’re trying to keep those to a minimum.”

Although the project is a maintenance project, Brown said it is a considerable one. City staff is using its own equipment and some heavy rented equipment to do the work.

 

“This is something that many would bid out, but we’re able to do it in house and it’s ultimately producing cost savings,” said Brown.

 

When the work is finished, the old ductile iron water lines will be replaced with a heavy duty PVC pipe. The good news, he said, is that during the project no one will be without water. He said the work will be done as fast as possible as the water line in question is part of an existing loop system.

 

“We’ve likely got up to two more days to finish and another for cleanup,” said Brown. “Weather could be an issue next week, but we’re look at the middle of next week to the end of next week to finish things up.”

 

Brown said since it’s being done as standard maintenance, he’s not sure at the exact cost. He estimated it was between $10,000 and $20,000.

 

Editor's Note: Top photo courtesy of Joe Shuttleworth.