Delays ahead: Sewer work off Geitner Road could clog traffic

$3 million construction project expected to take a year

Credit: Robert C. Reed

Workers from Hickory Sand Co. move equipment into position along Geitner Road (12th Avenue, NW), in advance of work to replace 100-year-old clay pipes. Contractors will be in the Geitner Road area for the next several months, which likely will impact traffic flow in local neighborhoods.

By Sarah Newell williamson
Published: July 14, 2009

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HICKORY --

Construction has begun on Hickory's Cripple Creek sanitary sewer project.

It's expected to take about a year to complete the $3 million project, which will be funded primarily through grants.

The project is replacing about 2.7 miles of a 100-year-old sewer line comprised of clay pipes near Cripple Creek, that carry raw sewage from downtown, northwest and portions of northeast Hickory to the city's wastewater treatment facility.

After 100 years, tree roots have gotten into the clay pipes through cracks. During heavy rains, storm waters get into the pipes through the cracks and cause sewer overflows, said Mandy Pitts, public information officer for Hickory. This, in turn, costs the city more money cleaning up overflows and treating the rainwater at the wastewater treatment facility.

The line is the main sewer connection line for many large facilities, including Frye Regional Medical Center, the Julian G. Whitener Municipal Building, downtown Hickory, Lenoir-Rhyne University and Highland Recreation Center at Stanford Park.

As employees work on replacing the 21-inch clay pipe with a 24-inch plastic pipe, area travelers may have to be patient.

"There will be some one-lane traffic periodically, but streets won't be blocked," Pitts said.

Construction will be done in the 1000 block of 12th Avenue, NW, at Geitner Road, as well as to the intersection of Sixth Street, NW, and Ninth Avenue, NW, including the Pines II subdivision. From the Pines II subdivision, work will be done to the Glenn Hilton Jr. Memorial Park, following Cripple Creek and Horseford Creek, to the Moose Club Pump Station, off the 2000 block of Sixth Street, NW.

Pitts said when work is done at Glenn Hilton Jr. Memorial Park, there will be a detour, but that should be done in the late fall or early winter, when there will be less traffic in that area of town.

Of the $3 million cost of the Cripple Creek project, $1,938,000 is coming from the American Recovering and Reinvestment Act. Half of that is a grant, and half of that money is a zero-interest loan for 20 years, Pitts said. The other $1.1 million for the project is coming from a grant from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.