The city of Aurora is planning to replace major water pipes near Cowherd Middle School that officials say have a history of breaking.
Specifically, the water mains to be replaced run under Liberty Street from Hillside Avenue to Catherine Street, under Beckwith Street from Grove Street to Liberty Street, under the whole length of Catherine Street and under Solfisburg Avenue from Beckwith Street to Crane Avenue, plans show.
A $1.8 million contract for the work was recommended for approval by the Aurora City Council’s Infrastructure and Technology Committee last week. It is set to go before another committee next week, and then it will head to a final City Council vote likely later this month.
At last week’s committee meeting, Aurora Assistant Director of Public Works Kurt Muth said the replacement of water mains under Liberty, Beckwith and Catherine streets have “been on our radar for a couple of years” because of those pipes’ history of breaking. The project was designed just around those streets last year, and the project was even put out to bid, he said.
But early this year, staff realized that Solfisburg Avenue’s water main had started to break a lot, with five or six within a single month, according to Muth. And so, he said, it made sense for that pipe to also be included in the existing project’s scope to help with the price.
“I want to commend our engineering department,” Muth said. “We had that block of Solfisburg surveyed, drafted and designed in a little over a week.”
The project was then put out to bid again, and city staff are now recommending the project go to the lowest responsible bidder: Gerardi Sewer and Water, Co.
Aurora awarded that company with another water main replacement project earlier this year — a roughly $470,000 contract for work at Star Avenue — but the company is expected to do work on this proposed, larger project first because of the more recent breaks, Muth said.
Along with replacing the water mains in these areas, the proposed project would also replace any service lines made of lead that workers find. Service lines are the pipes that connect a water main to a building. There’s about 60 service lines in the work area, and about 85% are lead, according to Muth.
Some of those lead service lines are not within Aurora city limits, he said. Although the city is ultimately responsible for replacing them, he said, Kane County is set to give Aurora $200,000 to do the work.
That agreement between the city of Aurora and Kane County was also unanimously recommended for approval by the Infrastructure and Technology Committee.
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Other water system maintenance work was similarly recommended by the committee last week, including a yearly contract to do standard maintenance activity on sanitary sewers, this year at a cost of around $1.3 million, and a roughly $380,000 contract to rehabilitate manholes around the city.