By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Hays city commissioners Tuesday approved $198,380 in sewer repairs of 26 locations primarily in the older areas of Hays, south of 27th Street and west of Vine Street.

The low bid was from M&D Excavating, Hays, which will start the work in January and is to be completed by June 1, 2019.

Jeff Crispin, director of water resources, said the project requires digging up and replacing some sections of damaged sewer lines due to pipe collapses, holes, or offset joints.

“The sewage is still flowing through the lines. It is also important to mention there will not be any disruption of service,” emphasized Crispin.

“We’ve viewed all these locations. We’ve used video and stills. We still have flow in these locations but it is important to get things fixed now so they don’t continue to become a problem down the road.”

Most of the locations have 8-inch vitreous clay pipe pipes buried 5 to 10 feet underground. All of the replacement lines will be PVC pipe.

“We haven’t done a project like this in some time,” added Jacob Wood, assistant city manager.

“This also gives us an idea of what the cost is gonna be going forward. Our estimate was about $100,000 more [than the low bid]. So we will have some additional projects, point repairs and that sort of stuff, coming up right at the beginning of next year.”

Vice-Mayor Henry Schwaller said he’s pleased the city is being pro-active in the repair of sewer lines.

“I don’t think we’ve done this in 20 years,” said the longtime commissioner. “I don’t remember ever voting on this.”

Commissioner Sandy Jacobs was absent from the Nov. 20 meeting.

It was held Tuesday rather than the usual Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday.