City officials said a project to rehabilitate 100-year-old sewers on Emerson Street will be completed by the end of March, extending sewer life for another century.
The Emerson Sewer Rehabilitation Project will repair sewers on Emerson from Ridge Avenue to Orrington Avenue, said David Stoneback, the Evanston Water and Sewer Department assistant superintendent.
The process will be completed in two phases. The first will start in mid-March and repair sewers from Ridge to Sherman Avenue. The second will fix sewers from Sherman to Orrington during Northwestern’s Spring Break in late March.
Residents will not be able to park on Emerson between Sherman and Benson avenues during the project, Stoneback said. Traffic will be restricted to one lane in each direction, and eastbound traffic on Emerson will be detoured at Benson. The detour route will follow Elgin Road southeast to Sherman and then proceed north on Sherman back to Emerson.
The process entails strengthening the existing brick sewers with a resin-soaked felt tube. The lining, called Insituform, will harden throughout the process, creating a pipe within a pipe.
When the Insituform installation begins, work will proceed 24 hours a day for two weeks.
Stoneback warned residents that resins used to fortify the sewers can give off an unpleasant chemical odor.
To prevent the smell from entering homes, residents are advised to regularly pour a gallon of water into each drain in their basement floor.
Stoneback said the sewer system will be operational throughout the project and said he doesn’t expect any complications.
The rehabilitation will not affect campus buildings, said Linda Reinken, administrative assistant to NU’s director of facilities management.
The Emerson project is part of an ongoing plan to relieve the city’s overburdened sewer system, said Michael Thorstenson, project engineer for Montgomery Watson and Harza Engineering Company, the consulting firm in charge of the rehabilitation.
The project was initially delayed four days due to cold weather, but it will finish on schedule in 2006, Stoneback said.
