Interstate Drive Water Line Project Set For Design

Cookeville City Council will consider a contract Thursday to begin the design phase for a water line replacement on Interstate Drive.

Water and Sewer Department Director Barry Turner told the council during Monday’s work session that the portion of the water line from Humble Drive to Walnut Avenue has had a number of issues in recent years. Turner said his department wants to fix the water line before that stretch of Interstate Drive is repaved.

“Any time we have a leak down there, that causes a patch in the road,” Turner said. “So we’re trying to minimize that and we’ve had a few good leaks down there the last few years. Like I say, we’ve got some rough areas there in front of TriGreen, in front of Chili’s.”

Turner said the water line would also be moved south so it is no longer directly under the road. Turner said the contract to begin the design phase is for $48,000.

“It’ll be less than a year of construction time,” Turner said. “But yeah, I think it’ll take, getting through the whole process will be over a year.”

City Manager James Mills said the city will hold off on resurfacing Interstate Drive until this project is complete. Mills said the project will be “very expensive,” as he expects the total cost to be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“When the water line was put in, it was located outside of the roadway,” Turner said. “Same thing with the sewer. Both of them were outside of the roadway. Now they’re both inside the roadway. So anytime we do any maintenance on those, we’re in the road. So we’re going to try to move it out of the road.”

Turner said the water line is currently a ten-inch cast iron line. Turner said there have been various main and service line breaks along that section that have been patched as they come up.