Celina, county join to tackle 'hairy' water line fix

CELINA - The City of Celina and Mercer County plan to jointly replace several thousand lineal feet of a failing water line along State Route 703 and in adjacent neighborhoods in East Jefferson Township.

The work will mark the beginning of a final phase of water line replacements in East Jefferson Township that commenced nearly a decade ago, according to Mercer County Community Development Director Jared Ebbing.

Mercer County Commissioners this week signed off on a $100,000 contract with Access Engineering Solutions for project services, including field investigation, preliminary design, final design documents, and bidding and negotiations.

Administrative assistance for construction and funding is not covered under the agreement.

"Sanitary engineer Jared Ebbing, his office had solicited a request for qualifications, which is a requirement for any type of engineering services," office administrator Kim Everman told commissioners. "They informed me they reached out to four firms. Only two firms responded. Jared then in-house, they … deemed Access the most qualified."

Under a best case scenario, the project would be bid out this year and completed in 2026. Asked how much the project may cost, Ebbing cited a "very rough estimate" of $800,0000, stressing that engineering work hasn't yet begun.

The expense will be split between the city and county government based on the amount of work completed in each jurisdiction.

The stretch of water line targeted for replacement runs from near Pizza Hut to about Grand Manor Mobile Home Parks, Ebbing said. The point at which the line leaves Celina and enters county jurisdiction is roughly near Loaded Barrel Bar and Grill, Ebbing pointed out.

Recent ruptures

The project was set in motion shortly after a pump system failure at an unspecified manufacturing facility in late November reportedly caused substantial damage to decades-old cast iron pipe.
  The water line in question is 12 inches in diameter, which Celina Mayor Jeff Hazel referred to as a major feeder line.

From Nov. 23 to 25, 2024, city crews were dispatched to patch up 17 water line breaks east of Celina. Hazel said there were 11 ruptures in the 12-inch line along 703, in addition to two breaks in a 4-inch line that feeds about eight residences on Home Avenue and four breaks in a 6-inch line that supplies about a dozen homes on Hill Crest Drive.

City workers had to excavate at each of the 17 sites before clamping in place stainless steel fittings to secure the water lines.

The cause of the water line breaks was traced back to a manufacturer that Hazel declined to name.

"There was a problem in the sprinkler system at a manufacturer, and it was malfunctioning, causing a drain to go and the solenoid recognized that and would turn the pump on and off, and the pump is what caused the water hammer," Hazel said.

A water hammer, Hazel explained, happens when the water flow comes to a halt and has no where to go, so it "reverberates and goes back."

The manufacturer didn't realize what was happening and the pump continued to shut on and off, eventually resulting in water line breaks along State Route 703 and adjacent neighborhoods, according to Hazel.

County and city officials met to discuss how to move forward.

"There's no grant available for the trunk line. We just need to bite the bullet and replace the line," is what officials concluded, according to Ebbing. "We basically both agreed we'll hire Access Engineering, let's get the drawings done because it's hairy out there. There's gas lines, there's fiber lines, there's all kinds of stuff. It's not going to be an easy water line to replace but it needs to be done."

Access Engineering will produce a more precise estimate before the project is put out to bid.

"If the bids come in good, we might knock off one or two more side streets that we've been kind of trying to do," he said. "Our goal is over the next several years - including this trunk line, this 703 main line, plus a few of the side streets - is to have replaced all the water lines. … It's going to take some time, take some money. We did the best we could with grants, but now it's time to knock the rest of them out."

Finishing the job

About a decade ago, work began in earnest to replace all decrepit water lines in East Jefferson Township, Ebbing said.

"We applied for a CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) to do as many water line replacements in the East Jefferson, Highland Park area as we possibly could," he said.

The county secured a $480,000 CDBG Small Cities Program public infrastructure grant and a $970,000 low-interest loan from the Ohio Water Development Authority. The CDBG program has specific criteria such as primarily aiding low-to-moderate income populations, aiding the preservation or elimination of slums and blight, and/or meeting an urgent need.

However, not all of the water lines, including the one underneath State Route 703, were able to be replaced.

"Over the years since then, we've worked cooperatively with the city of Celina where we could pick off a side street here and there, try to go get as many of the rest of them that we could done," Ebbing said. "I would say we were 85% there, 90% there."

Then things went awry in November when the water line along State Route 703 ruptured in numerous places, prompting officials to commit to a major project.

"We've got a great working relationship between (city superintendent) Mike Sudman and his crews at the water department, (city safety service director) Tom Hitchcock and us out at the county," Ebbing said. "They collect the billing, they help maintain it. We're able to take a little bit off within the bill and that's called the capital replacement fund."

The fund has been accumulating over the last three or four decades for precisely this kind of scenario, Ebbing said.

"Those residents pay for the capital improvement, and we're going to put that money to use and try to knock out the rest of these water mains," Ebbing insisted.