Officials with the City of Howell say they’re hoping to begin a project early this fall to replace and add water main within the entire Grand River Avenue corridor.

Interim City Manager Erv Suida says the municipality first conducted a hydrologic analysis back in 2008 and determined that the water main along Grand River was deficient in size, due to its installation in the 1930s’, and that it is in need of updating for reliability purposes.

The plan consists of installation of new water main by means of directional drilling from the west city limits to Chestnut Street, installation of new water main within the roadway from Chestnut to Barnard Street, and installing new water main in the greenbelt from Barnard Street to the east city limits. Suida expects the work will be a “50-year fix”, adding that it’ll work with the State Street rehabilitation project that’s currently underway by taking the water main on State Street and tying it in at Barnard.

At a recent city council meeting, councilmembers unanimously approved a bid and accepted an engineering services proposal related to the project. Council awarded the water main project to Springline Excavating, LLC of Farmington Hills for a total amount of $819,980. Council also accepted the proposal from Hubbell, Roth & Clark to provide Construction Engineering for the project for an amount not to exceed $106,326.60. The cost of the work will be supported by the city’s water fund.

Suida says officials are still working to refine the project’s timeline, but notes that the contractor would like to begin work the first week of September with a goal to wrap things up by November. (DK)