On Tuesday Wilson & Company gave a virtual presentation on the waterline replacement project downtown, the purpose of which was to get those who live or work in the area to fill out a questionnaire so it can minimize impacts and “fine tune” the work schedule.
The questionnaire asks business owners and residents to “characterize” their water use, Wilson Project Manager Alfred Holguin said. “Is it a restaurant or is water use limited to a restroom,” Holguin said, giving an example.
They will schedule pipe replacement to avoid a business’s peak hours of water use, Holguin said.
To fill out the questionnaire, go to: MSD.information@wilsonco.com.
The company has done 30 percent of the design work so far and expects to have a work schedule when it gets to the 90-percent design phase.
Three methods will be used.
Pipe bursting “inserts a new pipe into the existing pipe,” which will cause the longest interruption of service—up to a week without water.
Kathy Clark, who owns the Charles Motel along McAdoo and Broadway, will be affected by pipe bursting. She said she has turned the Charles Motel into apartments that house “nurses, vets and the disabled,” who cannot be without water for a week.
She asked Wilson if they would be moving her renters to another location or delivering water some other way. Wilson told her to fill out the form with her concerns.
Open-trench digging lays a new pipe parallel to the old one, thus causing only hours of interrupted water service. Main Street and Broadway will be subject to this method.
Wilson said most of the street digging “will be in the parking lane” and the New Mexico Department of Transportation does not allow them to close down the whole street, only a lane, therefore traffic will not be stopped.
The third method is horizontal directional digging, which saves the street from being dug up, a method used on the newer streets, Wilson said. The pipe is also laid parallel to the existing pipe, causing water outages only hours long.
Streets that are not getting new pipes but are fed water from the mains along Main Street and Broadway will have hours-long outages too.
Karen Burgess, a person with a business or residence on East Riverside, anticipated the outage and was informed she was correct. Those fed water from the big mains on Main and Broadway can expect at least an eight-hour interruption in service, Wilson said.
The work will be scheduled to complete “one line at a time, not leaving open trenches,” Holguin said.
Holguin said Wilson & Company expects the work to start April 2021 with requests for proposals or bids going out January 2021.