By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Grayson Utilities Commission voted last Friday (February 28) on contractor bids for the project to replace pipes in the city that have been in the ground for nearly 100 years. Director Gerald Haney presented the commission with the finalized bids for the project, with Opell Excavating LLC submitting the lowest bid at $1,233,615. The Commission voted unanimously to award the project to Opell Excavating.
The project will consist of replacing approximately one mile of six-inch water pipes in the city. The project includes reconnecting all the services, new fire hydrants, new gate valves, and capping the old pipes (which will be left buried) with mechanical valves. Haney told the commission that the project was a five-month contract, or roughly 150 days.
Haney said the commission has had positive results with previous construction projects Opell had completed for the city, notably the Hannah Lane Project and the Malone Lane Sewer project. He also said that the bids on the projects were very competitive, and that the commission also had positive results contracting with BP Pipeline LLC.
The Commission also heard the auditor’s report, which stated there were no noncompliance issues and no control weaknesses to report, meaning the financial statements were accurate as reported. The commission voted to accept the audit as read.
Haney told the commission that Grayson has had a challenging winter.
“Just for the month of February we have had 11 water leaks, and five of those resulted in a boil water advisory,” Haney said. “Most of those were on main lines, and very few were on service lines.”
“We had two different line breaks on East US 60 going toward Cribbs Hill,” Haney continued. “The first occurred near Dean Greene’s, in the junkyard area.”
Haney explained that when the original water lines were installed by a creek, the creek was probably much narrower. But with time and erosion the creek bed had widened and had caused other issues in the recent past. Haney said that fortunately there was enough space to move the line somewhat and repair the break, but more permanent measures will be needed in the near future.
“That whole line from where you turn off at from 1910 all the way to Tark Hill needs to be replaced,” Haney told the commission.
A week after the first break Haney mentioned, there was another break at Tark Hill.
“When it broke at Tark Hill it was under water and we couldn’t repair it until the next day,” he said.
Haney said those lines were probably installed in the 1970’s, and that there needs to be a plan made to replace them.
Overall, in spite of the challenging winter, Haney said he believed the water system was performing well. Fire fighters were able to access hydrants while fighting the recent fire at the Shangri La Motel in Grayson, and the hydrants operated for several hours and used 379,00 gallons of water without any appreciable difference in water storage tank levels.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
