The commission that governs Little Rock Wastewater approved an emergency expenditure Wednesday to cover the cost to repair a large-diameter sewer main that was breached Saturday.
The 48-inch pipe, located southwest of the State Fairgrounds' Barton Coliseum in the Fourche Creek Bottoms, is one of the three major interceptors that flow to the wastewater utility's Adams Field Treatment Facility.
The pipe was hit with a 14-inch-diameter tool by a gas-main contractor for CenterPoint Energy sometime Saturday.
"Flow is continuing through the pipe, and at midday morning [Wednesday] there appears to be no service disruption," the utility's director of engineering services, John Holloway, wrote in a memo to the commission. "However, the structural integrity of this segment of pipe has been breached and therefore needs replacement to assure reliable service."
The Water Reclamation Commission, formerly known as the Little Rock Sanitary Sewer Committee, held a special meeting by phone Wednesday afternoon to approve a cost-plus contract with Diamond Construction Co. of North Little Rock to get the pipe fixed as soon as possible.
A cost-plus contract is one where a contractor is paid for all allowed expenses and then an additional amount to allow for profit.
Wastewater Chief Executive Officer Greg Ramon said he expects the repair cost to be more than his $50,000 spending authority, but the utility is unsure of what the cost will be.
Diamond Construction expects the work to take about three days but can't begin until about two weeks from now. The sewer commission waived competitive bidding on the project because of the emergency nature of the needed repair.
Little Rock Wastewater crews were placing patches over the hole in the pipe as a temporary measure to prevent debris or groundwater from entering.
The utility isn't sure who is responsible for the damage, but it will make a formal claim to the responsible party to recover the repair cost once that is determined, the memo said.
Metro on 09/03/2015