NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) -- A part of Oak Street in downtown New Albany is closed for two weeks to repair a damaged sewer line.
Crews closed the road between Pearl and Bank streets after a dip in the road turned out to be a bigger issue underground.
“We were fortunate to find it early in the process,” said Larry Summers, the city’s engineer.
Crews had been filling the hole after it opened up, but after further investigating what could be causing the problem, Summers said they realized they had a bigger issue.
“Once we got into the ground, they realized the conditions of the pipe and the soil was much worse than they anticipated,” he said.
Now, crews are installing a new manhole and a new pipe. And they are lining part of the existing pipe that is still safe. They’re not sure how much the repair will cost yet.
Summers said they caught it before it turned into a dangerous situation like a sinkhole.
“When you have a 200-something-year-old city with sewer pipes that are all over the place, we have a program in place where we go around and we line the pipes," he said. "So we try and get ahead of any of these."
The city budgets $600,000 each year to install new lining into old pipes, which accounts for nearly 20,000 feet of pipe each year. Summers said lining older pipes can extend their life for another 50 years.
For the sewer pipe under Oak Street, Summers said they have not made it to that location yet to line it. So while they had the road opened up to fix the pipe, Summers said they might as well do the extra work all at once.
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