Ferndale to take on more sewer work starting in spring

FERNDALE — Projects relating to pipe and sewer work in Ferndale were approved by the City Council at its last meeting.

At its March 11 meeting, the council approved a cured-in-place pipe rehabilitation project and a sewer cleaning and televising project in Ferndale.

The cured-in-place pipe project was awarded to SAK Construction LLC for the cost of $452,098. The sewer cleaning and televising project was awarded to Taplin Group LLC for the cost of $265,681.85

“Sewers that are in place already are lined,” Director of Public Works James Jameson told the council regarding cured-in-place pipe. “It’s almost like a sock; they fill it up with air and heat that hardens, and it becomes a plastic pipe on the inside of a clay pipe. It’s much cheaper than excavating, because you can go through manhole segments.”

Construction is expected to begin April 30. Most of the work is estimated to be done by the end of June.

“The unlined sewers that are being addressed are mostly 80 to 100 years old,” Jameson said. “At this point, the useful life of clay sewer pipe is roughly 50 years. So we’re on borrowed time with the rest of these.”

Because of the amount of sewer work that’s been done over the years, Council member Greg Pawlica asked Jameson if the city is getting close to being done with this type of work.

“During the last 10 years that I’ve been on council, we’ve approved a lot of these projects,” he said. “So we’ve been doing this cured-in-place lining for quite some time. … It feels like we’re getting to a point where there can’t be a lot of uncured pipeline. I feel like every couple of years we’re doing a three-year project.”

Jameson told the Woodward Talk that this year’s project will cover 10,700 linear feet of sewer lines. Over the years, 143,000 linear feet has been completed, which is 33.9% of the work on the city’s sewers. After this year’s project is done, more than 36% will be completed.

The televising and cleaning program is conducted by the city every four to five years. It was last done around 2019.

This project also is scheduled to start April 30, with most of the work estimated to be done by July 10. The work includes cleaning, televising and condition assessments of sewer mains.

City documents stated that the project will cover approximately 60,000 linear feet of sewer main.