Southpinellas: Sewer pipe being fixed quickly to spare creek

Sewer pipe being fixed quickly to spare creek

By MIKE SAEWITZ

ST. PETERSBURG -- A big sewer pipe running along Booker Creek needs repair. So for the next two weeks, nearby residents in Roser Park may hear a loud booming pump that will divert the flow to a temporary pipe while the permanent line is fixed.

Workers discovered the problem late last week when cleaning the 42-inch pipe. The city-hired contractor found a 350-gallon leak, which the city reported to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

"There are aquariums in people's houses that are bigger than (350 gallons)," said Lane Longley, the city's division manager of wastewater maintenance. "This is not good, but it's not bad."

Repairing the line, which carries sewage east from the 16th Street and Tropicana Field District to a treatment plant, could cost as much as $300,000, Longley said. He said the line will be plugged during the project, but because of the temporary pump and line, no one will lose service.

The leaking pipe is at the base of the creek's embankment, and the "earth is supposed to support the pipe," Longley said. Instead, the pipe has been supporting the embankment, which because of the drought has lost most of its vegetation and is now a heavy sandlike soil that is eroding.

"If the pipe broke, all that sewage would be going in that creek," Longley said. "This is a pretty major project to come up in such an unplanned fashion."

The city is amid major repair work on its aging system of sewer lines. "Because of the degree of problems, we put (this one) on the top of the list," Longley said.

City employees will work with Insituform Technologies Inc., which has a $2.5-million-per-year contract with the city. Insituform will use a socklike bag made of polyester and cotton and cured with plastic resin that is activated by heat. As the sock is inserted into a manhole, it is filled with water, which is heated as it pushes the sock along the sewer line and turns the fabric into a water-tight seal when it cools, Longley said.

After the public utilities project, the city's engineering and stormwater department will take two weeks to try to improve support for the embankment, Longley said. It may lay concrete or vinyl along the inner edge of the pipe.

Longley said he did not know if or when the pipe would have broken. But he didn't want to wait and see.