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Installing
water pipe
under river complicated
The South Bend
Tribune - 9/18
MISHAWAKA --
Everything seems to have become technical these days.
Even putting in a
new water line can be pretty complicated if it's in the right
place.
The installation
of a new line under the St. Joseph River just east of Logan Street
that's under way now fits that description.
"It's very
technical," said Jim Crook, manager of the Mishawaka Water
Department. "They're good at it."
"They"
in this case are workers for Selge Construction, of Niles, who are
running the new line under the St. Joseph River 30 feet below the
river bed at a cost of about $393,000.
Crook said the
line replaces one that used to cross the river at the Ball Band/Uniroyal
site.
Installed in the
early 1900s, it was a cast-iron pipe that broke about 2 1/2 years
ago.
Crook said the
pipe simply sat on the bottom of the river. A fisherman was
standing on the pipe when it broke and it just about knocked him
over, Crook said.
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Several
hundred feet of water main stretch along Wilson Boulevard
in Mishawaka waiting to be run under the St. Joseph River
near Logan Street.
Tribune
Photo/PAUL RAKESTRAW
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That line wasn't
in good enough condition to try to fix it, so it was sealed off,
and another route was used to get water to the area just north of
the river.
But the water
system needs "redundancy," or the ability to move water
anywhere through two different paths. So it's being replaced a
little west of the old one.
Crook said the
new line will help the water pressure north of the river in the
area from Wilson Boulevard north to Broadway when it's finished,
probably in another week and a half.
He said the
boring head that makes the hole has a transmitter attached.
Technicians watch its progress on a computer screen and can change
the angle and speed of the drilling.
It has come up on
the Wilson Boulevard (north) side of the river where a 6-inch pipe
is being bored back through the hole to enlarge it.
Then equipment
will be attached to a long, flexible polybutylene 10-inch water
main and it will be pulled through the hole.
Finally, the new
water main will be hooked into the existing water system on both
sides of the river to take water from south to north.
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