The Oak Creek Water District has begun the process of replacing water lines in several neighborhoods south of State Route 89A and Soldier Pass Road early next week.

“The waterline [replacement] will take years,” operations manager Wayne Butler said. “We’re going to have a better [timeline] on that as they begin the pipe bursting … [There are] no impacts to traffic on 89A for the moment with this project. In some of the other sections of work there could be. That area south of Soldiers Pass is where they’re setting up their yard … all their construction equipment is being staged there.”

The project will replace approximately eight miles of water mains, some of which have been in place since the 1960s, at an estimated cost of $16.1 million.

“We’re right in the beginning stages, so there’s going to be a lot more to come,” Butler said. “As minimally invasive as it is, the style of work that they’re doing on the lines, there’s still a disruption to all the people in the neighborhoods. There’s no way of getting around that, but that everybody’s doing the best they can as far as notifying.”

The first phase of construction, which was completed this week, included the construction of two new arsenic removal systems and the refurbishment of three storage tanks off Panorama Boulevard and two tanks on Airport Mesa. Mains replacement work will begin on Willow Way, followed by Yule Avenue, Birch Boulevard, Oak Creek Boulevard and Inspirational Drive, although the work order may change as the project progresses. Butler estimated that crews will need between four and eight weeks to complete pipe replacement.

The mains replacement will affect 751 accounts, including 553 single-family residences, 46 multi-family residences and 152 commercial, industrial or institutional properties.

“There will be water outages,” Butler said. “We have an alert system that will notify all of our residents. Anybody that goes on our website and signs up for alerts … If I have to make a repair on a street, I send out an alert that they’re going to be affected [at a given] address … We’ll notify them

ahead of time that they’ll be out of water and it shouldn’t be more than a few hours to get it turned over to the other line. Everyone will have water through the construction, aside from the time when the water gets switched over to a different line.”

Representatives from contractor Summit Construction have been going door-to-door to notify residents about the project and flyers will be mailed to homeowners a few weeks before construction work is due to start on their street.

“Approximately 75% of the project will be completed by pipe bursting,” the project summary stated. “This technique will allow the lines to be replaced in their current locations and will decrease the need for a great deal of open trenching.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s water technology fact sheet on pipe bursting explains that it is “a method by which the existing pipe is opened and forced outward by a bursting tool. A hydraulic or pneumatic expansion head [that is] part of the bursting tool is pulled through the existing pipeline … As the expansion head is pulled through the existing pipe, it pushes that pipe outward until it breaks apart, creating a space for the new pipe. The bursting device also pulls the new pipeline behind it, immediately filling the void created by the old pipe with the new pipe.”

“The old pipe is left in place and works almost like a protective sleeve,” Butler elaborated.

Fire Hydrants

The project will replace 42 fire hydrants, while nine existing ones will be connected to a new water main. Butler said existing hydrants have been leaking due to age but did not have an estimate of the amount of water lost.

“It’ll improve the water flow and capacity of that area,” SFD Fire Marshal Dori Booth said. “We’ll have more water available from the fire hydrants that are there. Then replacing existing hydrants with new hydrants and even adding in a couple. That reduces the distance between hydrants [which] will help improve the capabilities of [SFD] by having less of a supply line to create in the event of a fire. It’s helpful all the way around. Then also with improved infrastructure like these water projects, it also improves our [insurance] rating, which is what insurance looks at to help determine rates for homeowners. So as the water supply increases, then it goes into a factor of things that the insurance companies look at to help determine the cost of homeowner’s insurance.”

Once new valves are installed, the number of homes affected by outages during repairs is expected to decrease.

“When I make a repair, when there’s a water leak and someone’s out of water, I have to dig it up and fix it,” Butler said. “A lot of times every 500 feet, there’s a valve, and when we [turn] off a couple houses of water, these valves are [often] not working, they’re so old. And I have to expand that scope to include sometimes two or three streets and turn everybody off of water to make a small repair.”

In spite of the age of the water mains, Butler said, there have been no issues with water quality.

“We’ve upgraded our meter system too, so the old meters have been replaced with new digital e-series meters that also have the ability to transmit the consumption via cell phone towers,” Butler added. “Instead of reading the meter physically by hand, it’s all done through a software interface that gets all that data collected, then that communicates to the billing software.”

“The airport’s master plan shows the airport supporting certain development and there was never a consideration for fire suppression of water for that development,” airport manager Ed 

Rose said of his current system, which has an 88,000-gallon capacity. “I’m working on trying to secure increased storage capacity here [at] the airport. I’ll need probably 150,000 gallons of additional water as a ballpark [estimate] and a delivery system, a spine of water to run to the mesa so it can be tapped into.”

Residents can sign up for email or text alerts to receive information about work schedules and possible outages at oakcreekwater.ruralwaterusa.com.