Saratoga County sewer district plans $1.2M in repairs

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

The county Sewer District will be spending nearly $1.2 million on major repair work over the next few months, including a project that will temporarily shut down a section of the Zim Smith recreation trail.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to authorize a $713,577 contract for re-lining part of the main trunk line in Ballston when it meets Tuesday in Ballston Spa. Another contract is for spending $460,000 on new pumps at the sewage treatment plant in Halfmoon.

Money for both projects is already in the 2012 district budget, said sewer district Executive Director Chad Cooke.

In Ballston, the contract will pay for Insituform Technologies of Mt. Vernon to re-line 2,500 feet of the trunk line from Oak Street to just south of Zepko Lane.

The popular Zim Smith trail runs on the sewer right-of-way. Cooke said that section of trail will be shut down while the work is being done. It isn’t yet known when work will start.

“It’s probably only a few weeks worth of work,” Cooke said.

The sewage trunk line, which was installed in the 1970s and carries waste from Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa and Wilton to the county treatment plant in Halfmoon, has suffered erosion damage to its concrete walls from chemical reactions. The repair will involve installing a permanent fiberglass liner inside the pipe.

Sewer Commission Chairman William Davis said concrete deterioration is a problem throughout the collection system, and the district has a long-term plan to address it.

“We’re in the fourth year of a 10-year plan tackling the sections that are worst first,” Davis said.

A section of the line near Oak Street collapsed in March 2005, requiring $330,000 in emergency repairs.

The contract to replace large pumps at the treatment plant is expected to be awarded to Avanti Control Systems of Gloversville.

Cooke said there are six pumps involved, all of which are more than 30 years old. The pumps push millions of gallons a day of treated wastewater from the treatment plant out into the Hudson River.