It won’t be too much longer until the Peachtree City Water and Sewer Authority will have a list of repairs needed for its miles upon miles of collection pipes throughout the city.
A cutting-edge program using camera-equipped robots to inspect the pipes has been ongoing and is expected to wrap up soon. Using data from the inspection, WASA staff will sort out a priority list of pipes that will need replacement or repairs of some form, General Manager Stephen Hogan said.
A preliminary cost with numbers that haven’t been finalized works out to about $2.4 million in repairs. Hogan noted that not all of the repairs will need immediate work, and the cost will likely be spread out over a 10-year period.
The authority has $2.5 million in cash reserves that are invested in certificates of deposit in various lengths between six and 60 months, and the authority also maintains a separate fund, though not quite as substantial, to address ongoing repair and maintenance issues.
WASA authorized spending $158,000 on a new grit removal system at the Rockaway sewage treatment plant to replace the current one that had been in operation for 27 years. Hogan noted that the current grit removal system has had numerous repairs and the manufacturer is out of business. Moreover, parts are no longer available to repair the system, Hogan added.
The grit removal system handles sand, dirt and other heavy material that ends up at the bottom of basins used to treat sewage.
The authority got some good financial news on a change order from a recent project, reaping a savings of more than $62,000 because a different pipe replacement method was used that required less excavation. The project involved replacing pipes near the Lake McIntosh reservoir to make sure they would not suffer from inflow and infiltration problems when the reservoir opened, Hogan said.
