CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The City of Corpus Christi is making efforts to replace aging water lines.
After a citywide effort last year to replace water lines in areas with the most need, 3NEWS learned about how much progress was made since then.
City officials said it is an ongoing program that the city is putting aside funding for annually. The plan replaces water lines that are experiencing higher than acceptable instances of breakage, and ones made of obsolete construction materials.
"The city is in the process of raising our pressure gradient in the water distribution system and constructing new elevated storage tanks, and these are some areas that have experienced high instance of breakage in the past," said Jeff Edmonds, Corpus Christi Engineering Services Director.
There are two items on Tuesday's Corpus Christi City Council agenda related to replacing water lines. One is more than $11.2 million for the Nueces Bay Boulevard and Poth Lane water line replacement project. Another is more than $1 million for East Navigation Boulevard water line replacement.
Edmonds said that the Nueces Bay Boulevard and Poth Lane project will see traffic control plans during construction. He explained that it is so traffic can safely get around trenches where water lines are being installed.
"A fairly large project where we're replacing 16-inch diameter mains and both of those roadways, and that will be making a significant step forward on replacing some of this aging infrastructure," Edmonds said.
Edmonds said that it is an important project to replace significant transmission mains in older corridors of the city.
"Those corridors that are of the 1950s and 70s vintage cast iron pipe, which is more susceptible to breakage, cause it's more brittle," Edmonds said.
He added that using better, modern materials reduces the risk of water line breaks.
"By putting brand new materials in, we hope its's going to be several decades before we have to come back in there and make any significant repairs," Edmonds said.
Edmonds said water service will be maintained during installation of these upcoming water line replacement projects.
He explained that not many residents should be affected since the projects are located in an industrial area. If there are outages, they will be scheduled and people will be notified.