(4/23) While the DePaul Street Water Main Replacement Project is well underway, the contractor, Huntzberry Brothers, notified the Town that the sewer lines lying in close proximity to the water lines looked old and needed to be repaired. With the road already torn up for the water line replacement, Town Manager Cathy Willets said, "The time is right for us to go ahead and replace the 44 sewer laterals and add sewer cleanouts at the property line." Cleanouts are capped pipes that allow access to the sewer line in order to remove blockages. There are currently none on DePaul Street.

With "Inflow and Infiltration", (when storm or ground water enters sewer pipes through cracks, leaky seals, or poor connections and causes unnecessary treatment costs at the sewer plant) being a concern for the Town, Willets praised the Project and its impact on the Town’s sewer system. "This is a big step towards reducing and eliminating the amount of INI that we have at the sewer plant," she said. "This will look really good to MDE."

After putting the Project out to bid, the Town received one bid from the existing contractor working on the Water Line Project. Huntzberry Brothers bid $337,540 to do the installation of the sewer laterals and the cleanouts, as well as the removal of any debris found once complete. The cost of repaving the roadway will be a topic for next month's meeting.

Although the Town typically looks for three bids to compare and get the best price, Mayor Frank Davis pointed out that with Huntzberry already at the site working on the water main replacement, it was unlikely the Town would get other bids. "We also feel that we didn’t get any other bids because the contractor’s already working there, already has their equipment on site, already has the holes dug, and it would be hard for anyone to beat the price of them already," he said.

The Council approved the bid and will be informing residents of the additional work. The funds will come out of the Town’s Sewer Fund which, according to Willets at the time of the meeting, had roughly $2.8 million.