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Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (pictured) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (pictured) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (pictured) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (right) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (left) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (left) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (right) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
Department of Public Works engineering technician Cody Wyman (left) and underground infrastructure services representative Mike Hagan (right) hosted a meeting to discuss an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
BIG RAPIDS — The Big Rapids Department of Public Works organized a meeting this week for business owners and residents to field any questions they have about an upcoming project to explore water lines in the city to identify lead or galvanized pipes.
The meeting was held Thursday, May 5, and highlighted the pros and cons of the project and how the city may tackle them. The project would focus mainly on the pre-1950 service line area, mostly the downtown area, where lead gooseneck and galvanized service lines were used.
Cody Wyman, a DPW engineering technician, led the meeting. He said the city wants to identify and address every pipe it can.
“What we have is all these galvanized lines in town that we know nothing about,” Wyman said. “It took us a lot of digging through record books and records and maps to figure out what we had. We came up with 2588 water service lines in Big Rapids, and we've started looking at what point we start upgrading to ductile iron with copper distribution lines.
“I'm sure you guys have heard about Flint and Benton Harbor and things like that with their high levels,” he added. “This is why the state's kind of required us to figure out what we have and come up with a plan to get rid of them by a certain date."
The city of Big Rapids maintains a water distribution system of over 60 miles, of which few segments remains from the first water works of 1871. Before the 1950s, lead pipe, or gooseneck piping, was used to connect galvanized pipes to the distribution system. The city has been working to remove the lead pipes from the system since the 1960s during system upgrades and for the replacement of leaking galvanized water service piping replacement with Type K Copper tubing.
Wyman gave some background during the meeting on how the exploration process has progressed.
“We knew that we had 1,037 that we had to come up with and find,” Wyman said. “The first year, we got lucky in the water tax, we're keeping track and keeping records of what we had in our systems. That year we replaced 47, and the second year we replaced 49. This last year, we explored 60 sites and found that 16 of those need to be replaced, and we have those recorded. So there were 181 left.”
Wyman explained that the city now knows there are 528 pipes that there is little knowledge of in terms of erosion level or replacement needs.
The city is working with Pipetek, USI, in doing the exploration
Also in attendance was Mike Hagan, a representative with Pipetek's underground infrastructure services, who said the project will use modern technology to work with the concrete.
“What we'll be doing is using a technology called hydro excavation,” Hagan said. “It's a large vacuum truck with high-pressure water on it, kind of like a power washer, where we can break up the ground and suck out that dirt to really minimize the footprint that we're using out there. Essentially, our goal is to dig down about a foot in diameter hole straight down to the water service and identify the materials from there.
“Through that process, we'll dig downfield to verify the material,” he added. “Take pictures of them so that you guys have them for your records moving forward, and then backfill and restore the grass and then that small kind of foot diameter area.”
The locations of the goosenecks are not known by record, but the city estimates there to be around 200. The total number of water services connected to the distribution system exceeds 2,400.
Wyman said they are hoping to work with area businesses to ensure the least amount of disruption.
“We're hoping to get some ideas of what times aren't the busiest,” Wyman said. “We're going to leave the downtown area for the end of the project. We're going to try to do the best we can to figure out a program and what works on the outskirts of the town area when we get downtown.”
The city is looking at two options for continued exploration and replacement of pipes for the downtown area. One would involve removing concrete squares individually and utilizing hydro excavation, or two, boring holes into the concrete to then hydro excavate the material. Either option does not avoid disruption, according to Hagan.
“It would be a matter of what's convenient,” Hagan said. “I know it's never convenient, but we want to know how we can disrupt business and everything else the least amount in doing this work. The (coring) technology has been around, and there's a supplier that has the equipment and everything that I've looked into.”
There was some concern from attendees about the coring method with epoxy filling cracking due to frost, but Hagan said there shouldn’t be any major issues with breakage. The equipment for the coring is similar to the equipment used in manhole drilling.
Moving forward, the exploration will continue and workers will be moving around the city to identify piping.
According to Hagan, some residents and business owners may see markers.
“We'll be communicating with Cody to schedule for what we have anticipated doing,” Hagan said. “Before we can actually do anything by law, we still have to do a MISS DIG ticket. So they’ll go out there and locate some utilities for us, and there may be some markings on the properties. When you see those kinds of markings, that’s kind of a one-week notice we're going to be on the property in the next couple of days.”
MISS DIG is Michigan's only utility safety notification system and allows companies to request public utility lines to be marked safely.
The majority of the galvanized pipes will be identified for replacement in 2023.
For more information on the project, visit cityofbr.org or call 231-592-4020.