An extensive water line replacement project that covered nearly a mile of downtown Ellijay is pretty much finished.
All that remains now are a few final punch list items for the contractor and paperwork for the water authority, confirmed Gary McVey, Ellijay-Gilmer County Water and Sewerage Authority director.
“At the end of each job, there’s always a punch list of items we make sure the contractor takes care of. You’re not really going to see their presence because it’s very minor things like seeding grass,” he added.
Hired contractor, UWS, started work on the project last August. In all, approximately 5,000 feet of water line was replaced, including a lengthy section of Transite (asbestos cement) pipe running under South Main Street.
“That needed to have been done 30 years ago, and I’m tickled to finally have it done,” McVey said.
A section of aging Transite line under River Street had already been replaced several years back, making the line under South Main that was recently taken out of commission the last section of that outdated material in the water system.
“We had already made preparations for this (project) when we did the River Street project. It tied in just before you get to the bridge on River Street if you are going from the roundabout,” McVey said.
The project has been one with multiple challenges including the new pipe going in amongst older water system infrastructure lines that is no longer used. There were also various traffic disruptions as the work progressed.
“We’ve taken a lot of phone calls,” McVey said.
The contractor actually took more than twice as long to finish than was originally expected, he noted.
“We knew it was going to be a difficult job that was inconvenient and intrusive because of where it was at, but we didn’t anticipate it dragging out as long as it did,” McVey said. “We figured this job would have been over around January. Right at Jan. 6, when the time was supposed to be up, they requested an additional 90 days, which we granted because of where they were at, but it took them an additional 90 days on top of that to finish.”
All paving of roads affected by the work is complete. That includes sections of South Main, River, Church and Spring Street. The portion of South Main Street that was paved first had to be milled, which created a rough, grooved surface where the old asphalt was removed.
“Because that road had been paved so many times the asphalt was thick and getting above (the level it should be). You don’t mill every time you pave, but the city felt it was necessary to do this time,” McVey said.
The anticipated closeout date for the project is Sept. 3. The water authority is still in the right timeframe to use a half-million dollar state grant to cover some of the costs.
“We’re working with the contractor now to get all the Is dotted and Ts crossed, so hopefully we can meet that date. If not, we could ask for another 30 days to do it, but we’re going to try our best to get it closed out by that date,” McVey said.