New Option Being Considered for Water Street Infrastructure Work

The City of St. John’s is considering an option to replace aging infrastructure on Water Street using trenchless technology.

“Staff have been exploring the possibility of how best and least disruptively to replace water and sewer lines along Water Street from Waldegrave Street to Job's Cove,” explained Councillor Danny Breen, Chair of the Standing Committee on Public Works. “Trenchless technology may be a way to do that. It has only been used occasionally in Newfoundland, but is quite common in other jurisdictions; based on our initial review, it does appear that this may be a good option for Water Street, but more exploration is required.”

Using trenchless technology was originally considered but was not investigated in depth as the scope of the project grew to include utilities, laterals and streetscape redesign.

Based on input from downtown stakeholders and continued research, the City will now investigate the feasibility of this approach. The exploratory work will include:

· Cleaning the existing combined sewer beginning in spring 2016

· Videoing the combined sewer and determining suitability for lining

· Confirming the capacity of the existing watermain

Information sessions will be organized and communications materials will be shared with the downtown community soon. Once this exploratory work is complete, staff will report back to Council with a recommendation as to whether or not this is a viable option to pursue. If viable, the project will proceed as planned in 2017 using this approach.

“We have been meeting with downtown representatives for several months now, and they asked the City to explore other options for this construction,” explained Councillor Dave Lave, Council champion for public engagement. “Although this option would still require some excavation around manholes, hydrants and connections, the amount of disruption would be minimized and the impact on downtown businesses would be greatly reduced.”

Pursuing trenchless technology as a means to replace the aging infrastructure would also mean that any plans to refresh Water Street above ground would have to be considered outside the scope of this project.