JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — JEA roadwork projects can often be costly and shut down roads for Jacksonville drivers for months at a time.
Friday morning, JEA officials unveiled a unique way of attacking wastewater pipe maintenance projects.
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Instead of tearing up a whole section of the road and replacing the pipe, the unique method includes simply reinforcing it from the inside. Utility workers feed in a hard-forming liner to the pipe, then pour boiling water into the pipe so that the liner forms on the walls of the pipe, reinforcing it to last well into the future.
“It is a realigning of that existing pipe with an even stronger material that will be able to last longer and sure reliability of this system,” Myers Vasquez with JEA explained Friday. “The system, this pipe was laid in 1960’ish, it hasn’t been worked on since then.”
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JEA officials said Friday that the innovative method of attacking roadway projects allows them to save the city money and greatly lessen the impacts to drivers.
“In this case, you have to close little sections where customers can still get in and out of their driveways down the road. So a lot less impactful,” Vasquez said. “It’s a quicker time because you can think if you have to dig into that trench. Then that’s, you know, talking six months or whatnot. This can be done in about two months or less.”
JEA officials did explain that the repair technique only works for planned projects, not emergency repairs like a water main break. Nonetheless, JEA officials say they’re committed to implementing the repair method whenever possible to lessen impacts for nearby residents.
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