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Sewer study finds more city pipes need replacing

A multi-million dollar project is funding a study helping the City of Columbia evaluate sewer pipes.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — As part of the City of Columbia's effort to improve their wastewater and sewer systems, they made changes at their Tuesday night council meeting to allocate more funding to the project.

It’s part of the Clean Water 2020 project. Clint Shealy, Assistant City Manager of Columbia Water says nearly $12 million will be spent on performing a sewer system evaluation study, which will identify any problems that could result in back ups in the city’s sewer system.

“It is essential that we do, if we don’t we have sewer backups and sewer over-flows," said Shealy. 

He went on to say, “We’re hundreds of millions of dollars into that journey, and are working towards modernizing our system.”

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At Tuesday’s Columbia City Council meeting, project leaders asked for additional funding to complete more pipe work, Shealy saying the money will be predominantly spent on labor.

“For the consultant it was continued construction and administration services and for the contractor it was an additional scope of work for them to repair other pipes we found were deficient in that area.”

Shealy says over the course of the project they will look at over 1000 miles of pipe across the city. The funding allocated will be for pipe work being done just upstream of River Drive, adjacent to the Broad River, and is part of the Smith Branch.

Credit: WLTX

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Shealy saying, “We found additional assets that need to be upgraded, lined and improved and while we had a contractor mobilized we are having them do that work as well.”

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