A water reliability study conducted for the Village of Oxford and submitted to council last week recommended $3.31 million in repairs, upgrades and additions to the municipal water system.
Council is expected to discuss the recommendations during future budget work sessions.
Topping the list of improvements was repairing and repainting the interior and exterior of the 500,000-gallon water tower on S. Glaspie St. at an estimated cost of $200,000.
Nowak and Fraus Engineers, the Pontiac-based engineering firm that conducted the study, recommended this be done, along with another $25,000 in well house improvements, over the next 12 months ‘to best protect the village’s investments.?
‘I don’t think it was terribly, immediately serious, but those water towers do tend to corrode if they’re not coated,? said Chad Findley, senior associate at Nowak and Fraus. ‘You don’t want that thing corroding. It’s a very expensive thing; you’ve got to protect it.?
Findley did not know the exact extent of the water tower’s needed repairs.
‘I know there was some corrosion on it. Beyond the corrosion, it just needed to be repainted,? he said.
Back in October, the village hired Dixon Engineering to do a preliminary maintenance inspection of the tower, which was conducted Nov. 16. A report on the inspection’s results is expected after the first of the year.
The study’s other recommendations revolved around upgrades and additions to the village’s water distribution system, which is a 90,630-foot (or 17.16-mile) network of pipes varying in diameter between 4 and 16 inches. Much of this distribution system is more than 40 years old.
Currently, the village system provides treated water to approximately 3,600 residents, occupying approximately 1,450 households.
The top priority for the distribution system, according to the study, is installing approximately 3,100 feet of 12-inch water main along Lakeville Road from Glaspie to Bay Pointe Drive in order to provide an important secondary feed to the Oxford Lakes subdivision. Estimated cost is $620,000.
Right now, if the existing water main to Oxford Lakes went down or needed to be repaired, ‘there wouldn’t be another way to feed that area,? according to Findley.
‘It’s important to be able to feed (the subdivision) from another side,? he said.
In terms of size, scope and cost, the largest recommendation made by Nowak and Fraus was to upgrade 9,000 feet of the village’s existing 4-inch and 6-inch mains to a minimum of 8 inches. Estimated cost for replacing these undersized mains is $1.8 million.
This project would affect water mains on the following streets ? Davison, Dennison, Lafayette, Hudson, Hovey, Moyer, Park, Crawford, East and Cottage.
Over time, smaller diameter water pipes experience a condition call tuberculation, which is the development or formation of small mounds of corrosion products on the inside of iron pipe. These tubercles roughen the inside of the pipe, increasing its resistance to water flow.
‘You get sediments that fill up the pipe, so a lot of times these 4-inch mains, after 20-25 years, will effectively be 2?-inch mains,? Findley said.
Increasing to 8-inch mains will ‘allow for future sedimentation to not affect the flow characteristics of the pipe.?
The study recommended upgrading 1,000 feet of the existing main that runs along S. Washington St. between Ensley St. and the Oxford Marketplace, from 10 to 12 inches in diameter at a cost of $200,000.
It also recommended installing 2,025 feet of 8-to-12-inch mains at six locations in order to eliminate dead-end pipes.
Those locations include Chari, Maple, Burdick Woods Court, Cottage Court, Lakeville Road and Ashley Way. Estimated cost is $405,000
‘There are improvements to flow characteristics when you do have water mains looped (as opposed to dead-end areas),? Findley explained. ‘It helps the water circulate through the main, preventing any kind of stagnation. You don’t want the water sitting around in the pipe too long.?
Drinking stagnant water may be unhealthy because some bacteria, algae and parasites are better able to multiply in water that is stagnant.