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Saturday, Jan. 25, marked the date of another sewer line failure in the Town of Victoria. Town crews were called to the area of 11^th Street and Jefferson Avenue for a possible blocked sewer line. As the town crew investigated the problem several methods were employed to attempt to correct the issue. A sewer snake was used to attempt to remove the blockage with no success. Another piece of equipment that the town uses in these situations is a sewer jetter which uses high pressure water to attempt to remove the blockage. Several attempts with the jetter were made with no success and red mud and gravel seen during the process. This is indicative of a sewer line collapse. After this discovery plans were implemented for replacement of the sewer line which spanned a distance of over 400 feet from Jefferson Avenue to Lee Avenue.

On Sunday, Town of Victoria crews mobilized equipment and materials to the worksite. Assistance was also received from a contractor for preparing the asphalt for the project. An asphalt ripper on a rubber tired loader was used to mill through the asphalt. This saved the crew a tremendous amount of time as this would normally be accomplished by cutting the asphalt with a saw.

Sunrise Monday found the crews ready to begin digging for the project. Monday and Tuesday are regular garbage pickup days for the town and this requires three of the public works employees to complete this which meant that manpower assistance would be needed to get the sewer project moving. Precision Pipes was hired to provide manpower to get the project moving. Precision Pipe provided this manpower assistance on Monday and Tuesday of the project. By the end of the day Tuesday new sewer line and connections to houses along 11^th Street had been completed from Lee Avenue and across Nottoway Boulevard. This segment of the project included the addition of a new sanitary manhole to allow access in the future. This was added on the Lee Avenue side of Nottoway Boulevard. On Wednesday progress was being made from Nottoway Boulevard to Jefferson Avenue. Installation of the new line should be complete by the end of the week with road repairs to follow.

The Town of Victoria is appreciative of the contract help that comes in to help with large projects such as this one so that other services of the town can continue. The public works department strives to complete as much of the work with town forces as possible to minimize the costs of the projects. This project will have an estimated completion price of over $25,000.00. The town thanks its citizens and businesses for their patience during projects such as this as work is completed to update the aging infrastructure.

To keep up to date on projects such as this one subscribe to the redesigned town website at www.victoriava.net.