The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Relief is on tap for residents of Little Rocky Hill, now that the Township Council has taken the first steps in replacing the Route 27 water main.
The council at its August meeting introduced a $210,000 ordinance for engineering work for the new main, and passed a resolution giving that engineering work to Hatch Mott MacDonald.
The actual engineering services are not to exceed $182,300, according to the resolution. The difference in the ordinance’s total and the resolution’s is due to fees associated with a bonding ordinance.
Several area residents were on hand at the council meeting to reinforce the need for the work and to thank the council for taking the action.
Any relief brought by the main probably won’t be felt until the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015, the council was told.
Township engineer Tom Zilinek told the council that the design stage alone would take about six months.
Within that six-month period, he said, the necessary permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection would have to be won.
“At some point within the design process, the council will have to approve” the project’s total cost, he said.
The project should go out to bid sometime next March or April, and construction could be anywhere from three to six months after that, Zilinek said.
“One thing that will slow down construction is how much rock they hit,” he said. “We’ll have to see what kind of rock is out there.”
The project involves replacing an old main that is supplied by the South Brunswick Water Division, said Township Manager Robert G. Vornlocker, Jr.
The new main would be connected to the township’s water main, he said. He said the township’s water line did not extend that far south at the time the Little Rocky Hill main was installed, thus necessitating its connection to South Brunswick’s.
Mayor Brian D. Levine said the project’s total construction cost would be “a couple million dollars.”
The public hearing on the water main bonding ordinance is set for the council’s Sept. 10 meeting.
