News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Baxter is preparing to move into the first phase of a citywide sewer evaluation to find leaks in its system.
Mayor John Martin said the first step is to camera the entire sewer system in Baxter. Martin said with leak locations unknown, work will take time.
“That creates a problem to our sewer plant when you have more water going in,” Martin said. “The possibility of an overage at your plant and we’re eliminating that. So it’s a project that’s really been needed for a long time.”
The entire project has been approved to go to bid, including the camera survey and sewer line rehabilitation.
Martin said this is not a project to rush because of the effect missing any water infiltration could continue to cause the sewer system. Martin said with water infiltrating the system, Baxter is currently working to try and find funding resources to upgrade its sewer plant.
“When we camera it’s going to take a long time or a pretty good amount of time to camera our complete system,” Martin said. “We don’t really know, we’re going to work on the biggest parts, the biggest problems that we’ve got in those areas. So we don’t want to rush and bypass something or miss something that could really impact more infiltration of water. So we’ll take our time on the camera work and then address where the worst areas are that we have in our city.”
Martin said it will be up to City Engineer Tom Bennett for how long Baxter takes bids on the project. Martin said Baxter will provide a roughly $89,000 match on the CDBG project.
