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FERNDALE — The city of Ferndale will undertake its cured-in-place-pipe sewer program beginning at the end of this month.
At its March 24 meeting, the City Council approved the cured-in-place-pipe sewer rehabilitation program with a contract awarded to DVM Utilities Inc. for $661,047.
Cured-in-place-pipe, or CIPP, is a process in which the city rehabilitates existing sewer lines “by inserting a flexible resin-saturated liner into the damaged pipe,” city documents state. “Once in place, the liner is inflated, pressed against the pipe walls, and cured creating a durable and seamless inner layer, effectively renewing the pipeline without excavation.”
“The (liner) goes in, we blow steam through it, it cures, it hardens, it turns into what you’d see as PVC,” Department of Public Works Director James Jameson stated. “It’s obviously a little different than that, but that’s how it’s done and it avoids digging everything. … A lot of these sewers are in easements or under roadways. You can’t just dig them up and replace them.”
Jameson said Ferndale has about 81.8 linear miles of sewer main, of which the city has replaced around 27.4 linear miles since 1991.
Tentative construction is expected to begin April 30. Phase one of the project is estimated to be completed by June 30, with phase two starting July 15 and expected to be mostly completed by Sept. 30.
All estimated dates are subject to change if inclement weather forces delays, Jameson said.
According to the city, last year’s evaluation of its sewers that it aimed to rehabilitate showed that they were in better-than-expected condition, which required less work.
As opposed to conducting two smaller programs in back-to-back years, a larger project was bid out instead for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. This year’s program will cover approximately 5,875 linear feet of sewer main.
The sewer lines for this year’s program are scattered throughout Ferndale. One major section of work will include a 33-inch diameter sewer, 1,064 linear feet, located in the backyard easement between East Woodland Street and East Maplehurst Avenue. The main goes from the Woodward Avenue alley to Bermuda Street.
Jameson explained that during this section of work, residents will not be able to use the sanitary sewer for the day.
“When someone can’t use sanitary, they shouldn’t be doing anything that causes water to go into the drain,” Jameson told the Woodward Talk. “Every sewer lead is going to hold a little bit of water. So it’s OK if you’re brushing your teeth, washing your hands throughout the day for a few hours if it’s only down for a half a day, but if you do things that use a lot of water, like take a shower, dishwasher, laundry, stuff like that, that is going to fill up that sewer lead, and when the sewer is lined, the sewer lead is blocked. So once the sewer lead — which is the homeowner’s section that connects to the sewer main — once that fills up, that water has nowhere to go. It usually comes out — if you have a basement — out of the floor drains. So residents won’t be able to use anything that uses water that goes down the drain.”
The city is aware of how disruptive this section of work will be, so it will be holding a public on-site meeting two weeks prior to construction with residents in the area looking to be more informed. Ferndale estimates this to take place in either mid-June or mid-July.
“It’s important for us to get out there to notify residents when something is coming on the forefront so that they can prepare,” Mayor Raylon Leaks-May stated to the Talk. “I’m very glad that our DPW is promoting that because so many times, so oftentimes we hear individuals state how they didn’t know something was coming to the forefront. So we’re trying to be more engaging and to notify the community of important initiatives and I expect that this will be our path moving forward whenever something important is coming up front.”
