Aqua Ohio has begun construction of a new water main that will service customers along Church Street between Windsor Street and South Greenwood Street and is expected to be completed by the end of May 2021. The project involves retiring 4,200 linear feet of water main line that was put together in the 1890s. With weather patterns impacting the ground they run through, the lines eventually break and require repairs throughout their lifetime. However, after 100 years of service, Jeff La Rue, a spokesperson for Aqua Ohio, said simply doing patchwork to repair minor breaks can only do so much before customers begin to experience interruptions or problems.
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This budget for this project totals US$377,000 with Elite Excavating Company, out of Mansfield, conducting the construction. Aqua Ohio’s area manager Scott Ballenger, in a press release, said Aqua Ohio expects to spend more than US$70 million across Ohio’s 33 systems in 2021 with nearly US$6 million of that being invested locally. La Rue said this US$70 million to be spent in 2021 marks the highest amount of money spent by Aqua Ohio on construction projects to date.
Currently, about 50 customers are attached to the old mainline. With this project, those customers will be re-connected to a new water main that will span across the other side of the street, per the release. This might cause some customers to experience short-term interruptions throughout the process, however, these interruptions will be planned and customers will be notified ahead of time to prepare for them. “The main we are removing have last a long time, but we’ve seen the frequency of water main breaks, and resulting service interruptions, increase over the past several years and it’s time to take action,” said Ballenger
