MORGANTOWN — It took the Morgantown Utility Board about 10 minutes Thursday afternoon to spend $900,000.
In a brief emergency meeting, the board approved expenditures tied to two projects: a fix for the slide-damaged sewer main along Deckers Creek, and a directionally drilled water line running below the Monongahela River.
As to the former, a $504,487.70 proposal from Anderson Excavating was approved to address a 30-inch sewer line broken by a landslide along Deckers Creek.
General Manager Mike McNulty noted the total is an estimate and significant effort will be needed simply to access the work site.
“It’s expected not to exceed the $504,000, but again, we’re not exactly sure what we’re going to find when we get into the excavation to build the road down to the pipe itself,” McNulty said. “And so we are feeling that we have to be understanding that there could be some surprises there.”
Assistant General Manager Rich Rogers explained further.
“It has to do with just where rock is. We don’t have the luxury of having time to go out and do a geotechnical investigation where we pop a bunch of holes to figure out exactly what the subsurface conditions are,” he said. “We are going to do that evaluation, but it’s going to be done after the building of the access road.”
The broken line was discovered on June 21 by Mark Downs, who, days later, would be sworn in as a member of Morgantown City Council and subsequently tapped as council’s MUB representative.
Within a day or so, MUB was working on a temporary solution to stop the flow of sewage into the creek. That fix was in place on July 11 according to MUB’s Facebook page.
“We have established a pump-around. So, what we’re doing, we’re pumping from upstream of where the break occurred, across Deckers Creek and into the existing sewer main that essentially follows the rail-trail back down to our lift station there by the amphitheatre,” McNulty said. “So it’s allowing us the luxury of not spilling as much sewage into Deckers Creek, but again, these are pumps that have to be checked daily. These pumps are diesel, and there’s a significant cost to the rental of these pumps, as well.”
Also on Thursday, the board approved a $399,549 change order for the directional drilling project crossing below the Monongahela River in order to replace the water line currently attached to the Westover Bridge.
Snider & Son was awarded the original contract for $1,948,859 last summer.
“After further consultation with CSX Railroad and our contractor, Snider & Son, it’s going to be necessary to bore through more stone and rock under the railroad at a depth of approximately 38 feet,” McNulty said. “The additional excavation to reach that depth requires us to do a change order with Snider & Son because of the rental of a crane and for shoring.”
