By Ruby Gregg
Lexington’s water and sewer pipes are more than a century old, but it’s impossible to fix them all at once because it would cost millions of dollars and disrupt the lives of residents and the operations of businesses in town.
Instead, the city has decided to replace water and sewer lines on an “aging basis,” which prioritizes the oldest and worst pipes, one section of the city at a time.
“The pipes in the city are just so old with some areas being well over one hundred years,” Finance Director Jennifer Bell said in an interview.
City officials identified Diamond Hill and Jackson Avenue as the top priorities. The $5.2 million Diamond Hill project covered Washington Street to Diamond and Lewis Street to Randolph. It started in 2021 and finished last May.
In the proposed fiscal 2025 budget, the Department of Public Works is asking for approval to focus next on the Jackson Avenue area in a project that would start in July and finish in 2029. The initial phase would cost $12.3 million and would cover White Street to West Nelson and Jefferson Street to McLaughlin.
“We’re just trying to little by little chip away at it to help improve the efficiency and keep costs down for everyone going forward,” Bell said.
Patrick Madigan, the public works director, said one project at a time is the only option. “If a meteor came out of the sky and we had to do an entire replacement [it] would be several hundred million dollars approaching one billion,” he said in an email.
Bell said old pipes pose threats for leaks, create drainage issues and cause sewage backups. Depending on their condition, the water and sewer pipes must be replaced or re-lined.
Such construction projects disrupt neighborhoods, and sometimes lead crews to dig up people’s yards to get to the pipes.
“You’re doing excavation. You’re having to do road closure. You’re having to do traffic management,” Madigan said in an interview. “It’s pretty intensive.”
Madigan said the city has waited almost a year since the Diamond Hill project’s completion to tackle other areas of town, mainly because construction costs soared last summer across the nation because of inflation.
In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included funding to improve internet access, water quality, roads and bridges, and build a national network of electric vehicle chargers and upgrade airports and railroads. The water part of the act provides $55 billion for cities and towns to expand access to clean water, repair water infrastructure and eliminate lead service pipes across the country.
The federal funds trickle down to state agencies that then distribute the money in grants and low-interest loans, Madigan said. For expensive projects like Jackson Avenue, the city will also need to borrow money, he said.
Another issue is finding contractors who can do the jobs. Such contractors are in high demand because several cities and towns are taking advantage of the federal funding.
“It’s a numbers game,” Madigan said. “There is all this money coming from the federal government to do all this infrastructure, but there are only so many contractors.”
The public works director said Lexington has also had to expand the timelines for projects to give contractors enough time to obtain materials and finish the work. Such a strategy helps to keep costs down, he said.
The overall goal, Madigan said, is to provide residents with water infrastructure that is “taking them into the next century, and that what they have is reliable and dependable and … is good for the next 75 years.”
City council will consider the proposal in the coming weeks.