Lots of Digging, but no Gold
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
In the last two weeks, J.R. Wilson completed the forcemain. Hopefully, for anyone who is in town and keeping an eye on the progress, you noticed the way the path jogged around the magnificent live oak trees as it made its way to the pump station wet well. Having the forcemain in along Cherokee Farms Road allows the contractor to now start connecting the water and sewer to the main lines that run under or along the road. The project has four locations where the water lines will connect to the main water line running down Cherokee Farms Road. And then the forcemain will obviously connect to the main sewer line that was mentioned in a previous post. Each of these requires getting under Cherokee Farms Road, which can be a little disruptive to traffic. Thankfully, with a neighborhood like Habersham built with principles of design that includes interconnectivity of the street network, there are so many different ways to get somewhere and the disruption can be very minor. A simple detour around a block can be all that is needed to route traffic.
Something else that these connections require is the presence of BJWSA inspectors. BJWSA owns the water and sewer lines, just as they will own the water and sewer infrastructure that is being put in once the project is complete, and they do not allow you to do anything with their pipes unless they are present. So, this requires scheduling these connections, or “taps” as they are formally called, with their inspectors. J.R. Wilson has scheduled taps to happen next Tuesday and Thursday, the 24th and 26th. They are scheduled to do water taps one day and two the other day. That will be considered an ideal schedule. Most likely, it will be one per day and then additional days will need to be scheduled. So many things can happen that can cause a delay. For example, there could be a failed pressure test, a gas line in the way, BJWSA could require a different configuration based on what they see with everything dug up, etc.
The map shows the four locations where the water lines will be crossing Cherokee Farms Road, causing partial road closures March 19, for cutting the asphalt, March 24 for digging up the two on the left, and March 26 for digging up the two on the right. Traffic will be routed down and around these areas via other entry streets and Harford.
The asphalt will be cut this Thursday in preparation for this work. This could cause some minor disruption, but it should be quick as they are only making saw cuts. On the day of the scheduled taps, J.R. Wilson will pull up the asphalt and dig down to the main water line. A saddle and a valve will be attached to the water main before BJWSA inspectors get there. The saddle is what wraps around the water main and holds the connection to the main. You can think of it as a Tee Connection. Attached to the saddle will be a stop valve that closes or opens the flow of water to the new pipe. Once BJWSA gets there, they will inspect everything before making the tap. If they don’t like something, they will report it and require the tap to be rescheduled a different day. If everything looks good, the tap will be made through the valve to cut a hole in the main line, the valve closed to shut off the water flow, and the tapping machine removed. The new pipe can then be brought to the main and connected into the valve. However, the valve will not be opened until the project is completely done and the state authority issues a service authorization. This process will be repeated for each of the tap locations.
One of the locations where the new water line will be coming across Cherokee Farms Road to connect to the 10” main water line. The orange lines are where they will cut the asphalt and dig across. The hole dug by the cone was done to locate the depth of the water main. In this location, the water main runs right along the shoulder of the road.
Looking carefully, you can see the blue flag and blue paint on the road in the back showing the existing main water line. You can also see the yellow markings that are showing how close the gas line is to the water line. The contractor won’t know the exact location and depth until they have it dug up. Hopefully no surprises!
You may have also noticed a water line connected to one of the fire hydrants along Cherokee Farms Road. J.R. Wilson has obtained a hydrant meter from BJWSA to begin filling all of the newly installed water lines with water. They will pressurize section by section to pressure test their lines. If they do not hold the required pressure, they have to chase the problem to address it, which may be a bad valve connection somewhere or something else. BJWSA’s requirement is holding 1.5x the pipe’s rated pressure, with a minimum of 150 psi for 2 hours. The gauge has to show 1 psi increments and there cannot be ANY pressure drop over those two hours. The official testing won’t happen until June, but J.R. Wilson self tests everything themselves to be sure they can address any issues prior to the official testing. So, they are starting to self test now.
Other action occurring on site is some final grading. The pond just finished getting completedis just now finishing to be completely dug out and that dirt is being used for fill along the alley that runs behind the lots on the northern property line. That alley will then be prepped for its rock base. As they finish that alley, they will move south with grading and rocking the road in front of those houses and finishing out the ponds. Rip rap will be added to the pipes that empty into the ponds and topsoil added to the pond banks before it can be grassed and stabilized. They’ll continue to work their way to the front of the property and we should have some good progress photos in the next post. The power company should be able to come and start running power and telecommunications in the next few weeks as well.
The beginnings of Fielder’s Mount being cut in as a road base. Getting it cut down in advance to allow equipment to run over it for a while helps with compaction.
The alley in the northwest corner of the site is graded along with the rain garden dug out on the backside of it. The depression of the rain garden is hard to see in the image, but it is a depressed area where runoff is designed to flow to and slowly infiltrate through organic material that will be brought in.
The alley looking in the other direction. This alley serves the lots that will face the pond and much of the fill dirt to bring this alley to grade came from the pond dirt. Again, there is another rain garden behind the alley that is difficult to see in the picture.
Topsoil being added to the banks of the pond so that it can be grassed and stabilized.
Full pond all dug out. Pool will be on the far side in the distance.
