In the past few weeks, city officials have discussed the proposed sports complex and plans for a $9.3 million capital improvements program to pave streets, improve city buildings and recreation facilities and build a new fire station.
The capital improvements program is an ambitious one, and has been needed for a long time. But in its discussions and planning, one of the city’s most serious problems — its aging sewer and storm drain system — has been glossed over.
When the Board of Mayor and Aldermen announced in January it was going ahead with a capital improvements program, plans for a $25 million utility improvements program were shelved until 2016. Maybe it’s time the board revisited that decision. Here’s why.
Vicksburg has about 230 miles of sanitary sewer lines and about 60 miles of storm drains. Most of that subsurface network of pipes crisscrossing the city is 100 years old or older and showing its age. And most of it is running under the city’s estimated 165 miles of streets.
Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said in a 2012 Vicksburg Post article that much of the city’s drainage system was built after the Civil War in the late 1800s. Much of the city’s sewer system is 108 years old, and the city is under a consent decree with the Environmental Protection agency to assess, evaluate, replace and upgrade its sewer collection system over the next 10 years. The consent decree came after an EPA investigation found the sewer system was discharging raw sewage into local streams, including the Mississippi River.
To top it off, our aging drainage and sewer systems are breaking down.
The most recent incident was Dec. 30, when a broken 100-year-old, 18-inch storm drain created a sinkhole near the intersection of Steel and Pearl Streets that consumed part of a Waste Management garbage truck.
In 2013, contractors repairing a damaged city sewer line at the intersection of Bowmar Avenue and Letitia Street removed the pavement to find a 10-foot deep cavern where the soil under the street had been sucked away through the broken line. In 2012, a leaking storm drain caused a depression in a section of the eastbound lane of Clay Street between Cleveland and Vanderbilt, and city workers blocked off a section of Grove Street between Fourth North and Fifth North streets to repair a broken 8-inch storm drain.
Given the recent history of the city’s subterranean infrastructure, the board might want to reconsider adding some type of utilities upgrades while improving city streets and buildings.
The city plans to spend $4.6 million under its capital improvements plan. That a lot of money to spend overlaying streets that may have to be torn up a year, two years or three years later to replace a sewer line, storm drain or waterline.
Paving streets is expensive. So is replacing sewer, drain and waterlines. Because money for the utilities improvements would come from a different fund than the city’s general fund, the board might want to revisit the utilities improvements plan. Combining the capital and utilities improvements could end up saving money and time in the long run.