Contractors repairing the Bristol County Water Authority’s leaky East Bay Pipeline on Friday entered the most crucial phase of the $4.6 million project so far — making sure they can …
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Contractors repairing the Bristol County Water Authority’s leaky East Bay Pipeline on Friday entered the most crucial phase of the $4.6 million project so far — making sure they can actually insert a liner all the way through the pipeline under the Providence River.
On Friday, crews threaded a bit through the leaking pipeline from Providence, where crews in East Providence retrieved it and hooked it to a 40-foot PVC “prover" liner. From there, workers began the delicate task of pulling that short liner back through to Providence. The prover is the same diameter and material as the PVC tubing that will eventually line the pipeline, and its job is to make sure there are no snags or obstructions inside that will impede the permanent liner’s path as it is pulled through.
BCWA Executive Director Pamela Marchand said Friday that she didn’t expect the prover to make it all the way through by the end of the workday Friday. But she said that if all goes well, it will reach the other end in Providence Monday.
If the prover shows the line is sound and obstruction-free, work to pull 10 450-foot sections of PVC pipeline through, welding the ends together as they go, could commence early next week.
“Keeping fingers crossed!,” she wrote in an e-mail.
The pipeline starts at the Port of Providence and terminates adjacent to land owned by the Silver Spring Golf Club in East Providence. At either end of its route the line takes an approximately 45-degree sharp turn upward. To get to the point where the prover could be installed, workers had to remove each “elbow” at the two 45-degree bends, so the semi-rigid PVC would have a relatively flat route to travel across and under the river. Getting it past those 45-degree bends would have been impossible, Ms. Marchand said.
Once the PVC liner is inserted all the way through, those 45-degree bends will be re-installed, the pipeline pressure tested and, if good, be brought back into service. Ms. Marchand said the work could take a month or more to complete from this point.