Oceanside has started a major upgrade project for its sewage and water lines beneath the city’s downtown area. NBC 7’s Artie Ojeda has more on the preemptive effort to avoid disaster.
The City of Oceanside has started replacing old water and sewage lines in its downtown area. Some of the pipes are close to 100 years old, well past their life expectancy.
This week crews are trenching Horne Street dropping in new lines made of polyvinyl chloride pipes. As part of $6.8 million project, the city will also replace hydrants, water meters and manhole covers. The work on Phase One of the project will last about a year.
When the project is complete, 1.8 miles of water and 2.1 miles of sewer lines will be replaced.
The new pipes are 8 inches in diameter and replace old sub-standard pipeline, some of which were four and 6-inches in diameter.
The city says it used closed circuit television cameras to inspect the old pipelines and found some in need of immediate emergency replacement.
“We saw complete exposure of the pipeline. It was completely open on top, and there were holes under the ground,” said Shawnele Morelos, city senior civil engineer for Oceanside.
The corroded pipeline could have led to a sinkhole.
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The project started in October and crews have already replaced more than 15-hundred feet of pipeline. Crews are working in one block sections, with each block taking up to two weeks to complete.
The city says it has done its best to notify residents, some who could lose water service temporarily.
“We are notifying as many as we can so they have a heads up on what to expect, and those were sent out before the project began,” said Morelos.
The entire project will be broken down in five phases, with each year-long phase covering close to five miles of pipeline.
