$14 million sewer fix needed, city told

Several times in recent years, heavy rains have sent the Pequabuck River over its banks and caused sewer water to gush out of manholes.
Without major changes, “there’s nothing we can do” to prevent it, said Brian Fowkes, who heads the city’s sewer division. “It’s very frustrating.”
Now, though, the city knows what it will take to fix the problem: $13.8 million.
The money would pay for two new sewer lines, new pumps and a number of other upgrades to the sewer system that serves eastern Bristol.
The basic goal is to make sure that sewage flows to the treatment plant instead of flowing through the streets and basements of Forestville, a problem that health officials want to see resolved.
A study of the problem by Camp Dresser & McKee, a Wethersfield consultant, found the lesser fixes the city hoped would do the trick won’t suffice.
The problem is twofold: the floodwaters are pouring into a pump station on East Main Street and the pumps there and in the Broad Street pump station can’t keep up with the volume during major storms.
“Pumping the Pequabuck River into our treatment plant doesn’t make any sense,” said Frank Stawski, Jr, a public works commissioner.
Neill Hampton, senior civil engineer for CDM, said the city needs to increase the capacity of the system and increased its reliability. At the same time, he said, it can replace aging equipment with far more efficient pumps that will do more while using less electricity.
Hampton, CDM’s project manager in Bristol, said some of the problem is the result of a botched installation of pumps in 1986, when four large pumps were bolted to the concrete floor of the Broad Street pump station instead of being cushioned from years of vibrations.
The plan proposed by CDM, and approved the city’s Sewer Committee, would also install two new forced mains to carry sewage from the eastern part of town to the treatment plant.
Hampton said it will take about eight months to finish designs for all the needed changes so the project could potentially go out to bid next summer.
The project won’t move forward, though, until it has the blessing of the City Council and the Board of Finance.
The city maintains about 226 miles of sewers, some a century or more old. It also operates the treatment plant, 14 pumping stations and 5,600 manholes in town.

Broad Street Pump Station
Design capacity: 16 million gallons a day
Actual capacity now: 13.5 million gallons a day
After project finished: 20 million gallons a day

East Main Street Pump Station
Design capacity: 2 million gallons a day
Actual capacity now: 1.1 million gallons a day
After project finished: 2 million gallons a day

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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com