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Canfield City water back to the 24-inch waterline as construction complete on repair
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
City water is expected to be turned back to the repaired 24-inch transmission line sometime today.
Joe Warino, city manager, said the 12-inch waterline, which the city ran its water through before the 24-inch line, held up while it was in use during construction.
“That, knock on wood, just ran textbook-perfect. We didn’t have to do any manual operation of the valve,” Warino said. “Through the day, we would lose 3 to 5 feet in the [water] tank and easily recover that at night.”
The project entailed replacing about 2,600 feet of the waterline that runs parallel to state Route 11. Motorists driving southbound on Route 11 could see the work being done on the side of the road near the southbound exit ramp onto U.S. Route 224. That line runs from Kirk Road and Route 11 in Austintown along Route 11 to the city.
Kirila Contractors Inc. of Brookfield was the contractor on the project, and the cost was not to exceed $478,220. Michael Benza and Associates of Brecksville was the project engineer at a cost not to exceed $57,373.
The city obtained a 30-year, interest-free loan through the Ohio Public Works Commission for the work, and Warino has said the city received about $47,000 in funding through the Appalachian Regional Commission from previous work done on the line that was stopped.
City officials still aren’t sure what caused the pipe to fail.
“This should be like 80- to 100-year pipe that is blowing out like that,” Warino said of the damaged pipe that was found during the project.
The pipe was only 20 years old, however. The section in question ran close to a gas line.
The manufacturer of the pipe will take samples to figure out what caused the issue. The new line is 25 feet to 50 feet away from the new gas lines, and the old gas lines were removed during the project.
“It really went very smooth. The pipe that we took out – there were sections that were just rotting away, and we don’t know why,” said Canfield Mayor Bernie Kosar Sr. “It just went the way we planned, and that doesn’t always happen in engineering.”