(Orleans)– The cost of a major road project in Orleans is about to go up substantially. Construction on a storm sewer and paving project on 140th Street between Peoria Avenue and Hill Avenue recently got underway. Meeting in special session Monday afternoon, the Orleans City Council was informed by engineers and the contractor that they have discovered numerous sanitary sewer service lines and some water lines are much shallower than originally thought and need to be lowered so as not to interfere with a new storm sewer. An engineer at Monday’s meeting put the cost of doing that at roughly $100,000. All of the new taps into an Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary District sewer main means that would have to be replaced as well. The problem has pretty much brought the project to a halt and had several city council members and Mayor Bill Maas expressing some frustration at Monday’s meeting…
At least 10 service lines need to be relocated. Typically that’s done at the homeowner’s expense but Maas says the city will likely make an exception in this case…
The council Monday directed engineers, the contractor and the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary District to put together costs to be considered at a special meeting that will be held later this week. One councilman, Ben Radcliff, said he feels it isn’t a city issue, saying the sewer isn’t a city utility.
