Crews are now working 24 hours, six days a week, on a multi-million dollar sewer upgrade project in Sarnia's south end.
The city's Engineering and Operations General Manager David Jackson said a large sanitary trunk sewer is being installed, 50 feet underground, from Confederation Street along the Howard Watson Nature Trail, under the large CN Rail yard, to a new pumping station by Indian Road.
"This is a massive project for the city, the tunneling is worth about $20 million and the pumping station's worth around $13 million," said Jackson. "That whole area services basically the entire city east of Murphy Road."
He said the micro-tunnelling is being done from four shafts, through mostly clay and some rock, to put in the new sewer pipe that's about 5 feet in diameter.
"We had some delays due to COVID. Because of the unique nature of the work, the crew is from the U.S. and so we had to wait awhile to figure out the logistics of getting them over the border and giving them time to quarantine. So, while they were waiting to sort that out, we have dug all the shafts, so that's why people have seen the work happening and sitting there for quite awhile now and then finally we were able to start drilling just a few weeks ago now that we have the contractors on board."
Jackson said the contractors are working Monday to Saturday, day and night.
"It does need to be a continual operation. The more stopping and starting you do of the drilling machine, it does add risk to going off of alignment. So, that's why at this point, they are working 24 hours, six days a week, and then they take a break. If they do run into a more challenging area, they would have to ramp that up to the full 24/7 just to avoid having to stop."
Jackson said the city is working on ways to reduce noise that's been bothering some of the neighbours near the Confederation Street site.
"We have generators and other equipment and so right now, we are right behind a residential area at the pit we're in now that has been disturbing for neighbours there and so we are working on a number of ways to mitigate that. We're trying some sound absorbing blankets that we're putting over some of the equipment. So, we've been working on that over the last week or two, trying different things to try and help mitigate that."
Jackson said they hope to move onto the next shaft at the CN rail yard in about a month, and complete the project in about a year.