Canfield sewer switch will benefit residents

By Ed Runyan

The larger sewer lines are expected to help with flooding.

CANFIELD — It may look like workers are installing a low carport into the ground along Hilltop Boulevard instead of storm sewers, but the unusual looking metal pipes were selected to provide the largest possible water storage and removal for residents of several city streets.

City Manager Chuck Tieche said the storm sewers that Foust Construction of Girard began installing a couple of weeks ago will continue to go into the ground along Hilltop Boulevard over the next month.

As Foust removes the 48-inch round concrete pipes from the ground, it is installing 4-foot high and 14-foot wide corrugated aluminum pipes in their place. Adding to their unusual appearance are the hundreds of metal bolts that hold each section of pipe together.

Tieche said the pipes were selected in part because they solve an elevation problem in one area of the project where only 4 feet of depth was available. If not for the problem area, the city might have used an 8-foot or 10-foot round pipe, Tieche said.

The first phase will travel east along Hilltop from state Route 46. The second phase, expected to be awarded and built sometime this summer, will continue up Hilltop and turn diagonally through yards across Skyline and Neff drives on the way to Callahan Road.

The first two phases will cost about $1 million, of which $690,000 is coming from a state grant. The city is paying the rest. Two additional phases will follow.

The project was undertaken primarily to alleviate backyard flooding problems on Hilltop and infiltration of the sanitary sewers on Callahan. These have caused some homes on Callahan to experience storm water getting into their basements, Tieche said.

When storm water gets into the sanitary sewers, it can back up, Tieche said. One way this happens, Tieche said, is that an abundance of storm water can get through the small holes in the storm sewer’s manhole covers. The holes are there to allow gas to escape from the sewers, he said.

Because the new pipes are so much larger than the ones they replace, they will benefit residents throughout the area by holding and removing much more water than the existing pipes, Tieche said.

Better drainage of storm water is likely to be noticed as soon as the pipes are in the ground, Tieche said, even before the additional phases are completed.

Tieche said there are a large number of types of storm sewer pipe that can be used. This is the first time this type of pipe has been used in Canfield, he said.

runyan@vindy.com