Plumbing Makeover Planned for Locust Point

Remember Federal Hill last year (and the year before that, and the year before that), when PVC pipes snaked up and down the sidewalks, leaking water as they went? That's what some streets in our neighborhood will look like a year from now.

Baltimore's Department of Public Works made a formal presentation on "Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project WC #1203-E" at the Locust Point Community Association meeting last night.  The goal is to replace worn out water lines on Decatur, Beason, Haubert, Hull, Cooksie and Andre Streets starting in "Spring 2011."

John Moore with RK&K Engineering, the consultant hired by DPW to manage the job, said streets were selected based on resident complaints and stress tests done on the water pipes.  I will admit bias here and say I live on one of the streets that will be ripped up and I've had no complaints about dirty water of low water pressure, so I'm suspicious of those criteria. 

Three main lines of questions came up at the meeting:
1. Is this project being coordinated with BGE, which will be coming through the neighborhood to rip up/replace natural gas lines?  Answer:  not really, gosh we should look into that.
2. What will DPW do to ensure that proper repairs will be made after the streets are ripped up?  One resident who lives on Fort Avenue and lived through a water line rehab there said DPW failed to provide any construction management.  Concrete sidewalks were broken and not repaired until politicians were called in. 
3. How will DPW keep residents informed about service interruptions? Again, this was a problem with the Federal Hill water line work

Work in Locust Point is scheduled to take six to seven months.  The Federal Hill project was supposed to take two years.  It ended up taking more than three.    Needless to say, lots of questions remain on how to avoid headaches while improving our aging infrastructure.