The Aurora City Council has approved the replacement of 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 approved by the Aurora City Council on Tuesday as part of the meeting’s consent agenda, which is typically reserved for routine or non-controversial items that are all approved with a single vote. So, aldermen did not spend time discussing the item at Tuesday’s meeting.
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, Aurora Assistant Director of Public Works Kurt Muth said at a past committee meeting.
The project was designed just around those streets last year, he said, and the project was even put out to bid.
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 — so it made sense for that pipe to also be included in the existing project’s scope to help with the price, according to Muth.
He said that the Solfisburg portion of the project was surveyed, drafted and designed in a bit over a week, and he commended the engineering department for its work.
The project was then put out to bid again, with Gerardi Sewer and Water, Co., emerging as the bidder with the lowest cost while still meeting all the requirements. So, it got the contract.
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 the larger project first because of the more recent breaks, Muth has said.
Along with replacing the water mains near Cowherd Middle School, the recently-approved 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, and although the city is ultimately responsible for replacing them, Kane County will be giving Aurora $200,000 to do the work.
That agreement between the city of Aurora and Kane County was also approved on Tuesday as a part of the Aurora City Council meeting’s consent agenda.
Other water system maintenance work was similarly approved on Tuesday, 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.