Bolin Creek Sewer Replacement between Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Estes Drive Extension
Updated on October 21, 2011
Project Description
On January 21st, we signed a contract with Park Construction of North Carolina, Inc. to replace our sanitary sewer near Bolin Creek from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Estes Drive Extension, and part of the water main in Umstead Drive west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The contractor began working in February. The contracted date for completing the project is January 31, 2012. (This timetable is subject to change due to weather and other conditions.)
Current status
Umstead Drive has reopened for normal traffic from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Estes Drive Extension due to substantial completion of OWASA’s sewer replacement project along Bolin Creek.
The reopening of Umstead Drive includes its intersections with Village Drive, Pritchard Avenue Extension and Bradley Road, which were affected by installation of the new sewer along Bolin Creek.
We are happy that our contractor, Park Construction of North Carolina, has completed our sewer replacement work ahead of schedule, and we deeply appreciate the patience and understanding of the many residents who have been affected by our work.
Town services and facilities
Information from the Town of Chapel Hill as of October 14th: UMSTEAD PARK OFFICIALLY REOPENED AT 5 P.M. ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14TH. OWASA will still have some work to do to restore the park to its preconstruction condition, but those tasks can take place without the need to close the entire park. The youth ballfield on the north side of Umstead Drive will likely remain closed for another 2 weeks. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Bill Webster at bwebster@townofchapelhill.org or 919-968-2819.
Chapel Hill Transit schedules are available at www.chtransit.org. The N and Saturday JN will continue on current detour routes and schedules.
Project Location
Need for the Work
We need to replace the existing sewer because of its limited capacity, age and condition. When a pipe’s capacity to handle sewage is exceeded, a sewage spill may occur. Sewage overflows could harm Bolin Creek, and affect parkland and greenway trail corridors, etc. The new sewer will also handle wastewater from expected future growth.Our goal is to have zero wastewater overflows.
We will replace the existing water main in Umstead Drive where we are replacing the existing sewer because of the water main’s age, condition, and the need to relocate portions of it to accommodate the new sewer line installation.
Planning and Design
The location, planning and design of the project took into account:
- Environmental impacts including water quality and stream bank/channel conditions;
- To the extent practical given the location and nature of the project, the need to limit disruption of access to properties by residents, property owners, park users and public and private services including but not limited to emergency service agencies;
- The need to restore access through the project area for drivers and pedestrians as soon as practical given the location and nature of the sewer installation work; and
- Costs to OWASA ratepayers, including customers who may need to connect to the new sewer in the future.
Estimated Timetable
Our contract calls for completion of this project in January, 2012, but weather, the amount of underground rock to be removed and other factors may affect the duration and progress of the work..
How the Work May Affect Citizens
- While work is underway in Umstead Drive, through traffic will not be possible in the work zone 24 hours a day. Access to residences with driveways in the work zone will be temporarily limited when work occurs in front of a driveway.
- The project will involve considerable noise, in part because of the expected need to remove underground rock by blasting and mechanical methods.
- The project will involve dust and mud.
- The normal work hours will be 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, clean-up work is allowed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- OWASA will work with the contractor to minimize the potential for interruption of utility services such as power, communications, water/sewer, etc. but some interruptions may occur. (For affected citizens), we will give advance notice of planned service interruptions and notice of unplanned interruptions using the OWASA website, e-mail notices, delivery of paper notices, etc. when practical under the conditions at a given time. If there are unplanned interruptions of service, we will work with the affected utilities to restore service as soon as possible. (If you are in the area near our Bolin Creek sewer project, we encourage you to share your e-mail address with us so that we can give you notices electronically for speed and to avoid the costs of paper mailings—please see the e-mail address and other contact information below.)
If there is an unexpected interruption of utility service(s), we recommend directly contacting the utility(ies) to report the loss of service. Please see the contact information below.
However, if you are unable to contact a utility but you can contact OWASA, we will be glad to relay information to the utility company as soon as we can. Our contact information is:
Stuart Carson, P.E., OWASA Engineering Manager, 537-4247 or scarson@owasa.org
Greg Feller, Public Affairs, 537-4267 (office); gfeller@owasa.org
We will send periodic updates by e-mail and we will post information on our website when we have information to report about a utility service outage. We may not know who is able to receive e-mail, of course.
We acknowledge that it is possible that additional unplanned service interruptions could occur. If and when this happens, we can work with the appropriate parties to determine what happened and what should be done as corrective and preventive action.
For More Information
Additional documents related to this project:
For questions, comments, or concerns about this project, please contact Mr. Jeremy Fireline, P.E., Utilities Engineer, at (919) 537-4249 .
Return to Ongoing Construction Work page