By Christine Bryant
Staff Writer
Reynoldsburg is making plans to continue its annual project of inspecting manholes and sewer mains this spring.
The project, part of the city’s Capacity, Management, Operation and Maintenance program, went before city council’s finance and service committee meetings Jan. 19. Though introduced at the meetings, the project must go through several more readings and will not be passed for several weeks, said Nathan Burd, director of public service for the city of Reynoldsburg.
EMH&T, an engineering and surveying firm based near New Albany, will inspect the manholes sprinkled throughout Reynoldsburg, while city workers will perform any camera work on sewer mains. EMH&T also will conduct a camera log review.
Manhole inspections will start around April or May, with a project cost of $72,672, said Mike Root, water/wastewater superintendent for the city.
All of the roughly 3,583 manholes in Reynoldsburg need to be inspected, with 600 scheduled for this year. To date, around 1,200 have been inspected so far, he said.
“Most of our older manholes are made out of brick,” Root said. “We are looking for deterioration of the brick and infiltration of water.”
This year in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan project, the rehabilitation of about 25 to 30 manholes is included. Any improvements will prevent clean water from running into the sanitary sewer so wastewater plants don’t have to treat the clean water, Root said.
When checking the sewer mains, workers will look for cracked, broken deposits.
“This will create a list of rehabilitation on the sewer main, and a preventive measure to find any problems before a backup would occur,” Root said.
Any deficiencies found from the camera or manhole inspections will be ranked and put on the city’s CIP Plan list, he said.
