Photo Provided St. Clairsville Safety and Service Director Jeremy Greenwood reviews the city’s waterlines. He said progress is being made on water projects including a new permanent main waterline. He hopes to have Ohio Department of Transportation permits in hand and the line in place before winter.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Reliable water service through the winter remains in question despite the Ohio Department of Transportation’s approval of a city plan to run a new permanent main waterline through a culvert under Interstate 70.

When city employees discovered the main line from the water treatment plant was leaking, workers changed over to a temporary waterline along Reservoir Road in August. However, Service and Safety Director Jeremy Greenwood does not wish to take the risk of running water through the line that lies atop the surface during winter months. The city hopes to run the new permanent line through the old line’s culvert under I-70 to save time and money.

So far, more than $800,000 has been spent on the project, Greenwood said

“We’re waiting on just getting permits now. Once we have the permits we’ll be able to proceed with the project,” he said.

Greenwood added he did not know when those permits would be received, and he noted the local area had its first snowfall two weeks ago.

“We’re at ODOT’s mercy with that,” Greenwood said. “We got (Environmental Protection Agency) approval … but we’re waiting on ODOT.”

Greenwood said once the paperwork is received the city must determine if the current casing can be used for a new line.

“Once we get approval from ODOT it’s going to be a back and forth,” he said. “I’m hoping it’s going to be a week or two process.

“We already have the waterlines in our stock, and a contractor was able to get some of those already. We’re just waiting on ODOT and then it’s going to be kind of a wait-and-see game of how bad is that culvert? Is it bad? Is it going to be OK? Are we going to be able to do Plan A or are we going to have to adjust and go to Plan B?”

If the culvert is not an option, it will be necessary to drill under the interstate and install new casement, with increased cost.

Greenwood is confident in water service through the winter.

“With all of the water coming through the pipe and the thickness of the pipe, I’m not worried about freezing until we get about sub Arctic weather. If that happens, our plan is to get some heat tape and put on the section that goes across the bridge (above I-70), because that would be the section that is most vulnerable because it would be totally exposed to the cold from above and below. The sections that are in the ground and on the ground, I’m not as worried about. I would much rather get the project done and not be paying to have traffic control over a bridge that is just sitting there.”

A 400-foot section of new waterline was also installed past the BellStores fueling station at 418 S. Marietta St. The station is currently being upgraded and expanded.

“They’re going to try and have the store open by the end of next month,” Greenwood said. “Our pipe’s already in the ground. They’re going to do their tap for the new building on Monday.

“We brought a new waterline down from Linda Drive in our right-of-way,” Greenwood said. “We brought our right-of-way and that line all the way down to the property where the store’s going to be built. It was a pretty easy little fix, but it was just something unexpected because our mapping showed we had a 6-inch waterline there and we didn’t. … We put it back as an 8-inch instead of a 6-inch because of the potential to upgrade Thompson Drive and some of those other areas there that have low water pressure. We’ll be able to come in eventually and tap that line, and when we finish redoing our distribution system we can bring that as an 8-inch line back to our 12-inch line that comes down by the bike trail. Hopefully it works out.”

Regarding the overall plan to purchase water from Belmont County, Greenwood said the waterline connection with the county at the east end of the city is ready with pipes in place.

“We’re just waiting on the vault still. The concrete vault,” Greenwood said. “That one will have a big concrete vault like 7 or 8 feet. We’ll have all of our valves and our shut-offs and our mechanical stuff down in the vault, and we’ll have a booster station in a little metal hut that sits on top of it. … James White (Construction Co.) is the contractor on that. They’re waiting on their supplier on that to get the pre-capped concrete vault. We were hoping to have that done by now, but we’re still ahead of our deadline to have our decommission and switchover to the county water.”