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Work will continue well into the new year on the sewer line along Wallace Road between Alexander Road and Route 571. A one-year service agreement through November 30, 2012, was adopted with contractor Scheidler Excavating Co. of Hightstown at the town council meeting on Monday, December 19.
“They are currently excavating the site where they believe the sewer line break is,” said Business Administrator Robert Hary. “They are taking the excavation material and waste over to the staging area — the old compost area on Alexander Road (the site of the proposed New South parking lot) where it will all be placed on top of thick plastic material, so it will not infringe upon that area at all. They will then be putting in shoring — strong metal or cast-iron sidewall protectors.”
Hary said once that is finished and it becomes easier for workers to get into the 15 to 17-foot deep hole where the pipes lie, crews will then start repairs on what they believe is just one break in the line.
Residents who have frequented Wallace Road speculated whether or not the township was letting the same problem repeat itself. At council’s re-organization meeting on January 3, John Church of 11 Princeton Place said he looked in the township’s archives and determined that in April, 2007, the same situation occurred.
“We had seven inches of rain in one day and immediately a sinkhole opened up on Wallace Road in virtually the same location, which seems like a coincidence. The cost of that repair was $537,000 which was bonded. That is unsatisfactory, and I’m just wondering what’s going on here,” Church said.
At both the December 19 and January 3 meetings Councilman-elect Bryan Maher asked Hary whether or not the break was in the same location as one that occurred in 2007.
“It is literally directly adjacent to where the previous break was but it is not the same pipe that was repaired four years ago — it’s just next to it. This time the emergency crews, using television monitors underground, have determined that the pipe is in bad shape from the break all the way down to Route 571,” Hary said.
The emergency contract, which will hold the township responsible for a daily rate yet to be determined, came into question by Councilman George Borek, and Hary said although the contract’s term was for a full year the township would likely need Scheidler’s services for just the next couple of months. However, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh says that the repair efforts will need to be coordinated with the planned re-paving of Wallace Road in the spring, which he said would be funded in part by a $250,000 grant from the state.
“Whatever we do now has to be considered as we go about converting Wallace Road into a more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly place,” the mayor said.
Hsueh added that a new contractor will be brought in for that project in the spring. If the $250,000 does not cover the full cost of re-paving he anticipates that the township would use money allocated for capital improvements in the municipal budget.
In a telephone interview just before Christmas, West Windsor Director of Public Works Alex Drummond, who is coordinating repair efforts along with township engineer Francis Guzik, gave some details on why Scheidler was initially brought in.
“We hired the contractor to do some ground penetrating radar over the work site. We haven’t found any other areas that cadenced underneath the roadway. But we are looking to re-line the whole length of the sewer line,” Drummond said.
Hary explained the re-lining further at the Council meeting.
“There is technology available where you don’t have to excavate out the old pipe; as long as it’s intact we can shoot in there a hard plastic sealant. Going from one catch basin or manhole to another we can shoot in this liner. As it cures it gets hard just like PVC pipes so in effect you have a brand-new sewer line without having to excavate the entire road. We intend to make the repair this way as we have done in other lines in the past, and once it’s done it will be like we have a brand new pipe there,” Hary says.
Hary added that with the televised view of the line crews have determined that it is in poor shape and the concrete has started to corrode. He says the main causes of this condition are the age of the pipes (built in 1977) and the fact that sewage can build up because there is not much effluence due to very little slope to the pipes.
“What happens in this and many areas of town is that because there’s not a big slope the sewage sits in the line because it isn’t flowing a lot. It causes reaction that over the course of time, years and years now, has actually begun corroding the concrete,” Hary said.
Public Works has taken caution to control the risk of more chaos. Drummond points out that as crews continued working, bypass pumps had been set up to eliminate the potential for flooding or spills — which occurred on North Post Road after the initial break on Friday, December 9.
Neither Hary nor Drummond have an approximate end date for excavation or repairs, and for the foreseeable future the road will remain closed to through traffic. Drummond explained why.
“We needed to close it because the contractor has the road opened up and we can’t have cars driving by the sinkhole because they will be loading trucks in that lane,” he said.
Drummond added that crews would continue working from roughly 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondays through Fridays. At the town council meeting on December 19, Diane Ciccone questioned Hary as to why the crew were not out in full force seven days a week.
“It’s such dangerous and technical work that the work should not really be done at night and weekends either because if something goes wrong and you need some material or extra supplies, they’re not going to be available on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday. Clearly we’d love to have the work done seven days a week but it’s just not the practical thing to do,” Hary said.
