Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RALPH ANSAMI
Ironwood — Property owners who will be affected by next summer’s water and sewer project in Ironwood had the opportunity to meet with city officials and representatives of Coleman Engineering Thursday.
Ten people who will be affected by the project had their questions answered during the session at the Memorial building.
Mike Foley, project manager for Coleman, noted it is the fourth phase of sewer-water work in the city, also resulting in new street surfaces.
The gravel roads won’t be converted to blacktop, but city manager Scott Erickson said there’s about five miles of gravel roads in the city that could be considered for blacktopping by the city commission.
The project, funded with federal dollars, will also include running the last 6,000 feet of water line replacement from the wellfields in Ironwood Township that the city uses for its water source.
The project will begin around May and the second and final coats of new blacktop will be laid in the spring of 2018.
Homeowners were assured by Foley that they will have access to their homes every day at the end of construction. The sewer lines are laid first, followed by water lines and then stormwater work.
As in other water projects in the city, temporary water lines, connected to hydrants, will provide water to individual homes when shut-offs are required.
Foley said homeowners should take care that the black temporary pipes aren’t cut by lawnmowers.
New curbs will be placed where there are curbs now. On streets like Luxmore, however, there will continue to be no curbs.
The project will be bid over the winter months.
Many of the questions to Foley on Thursday were about the connections to the houses from the city streets. He said newer homes have copper lines running from the street to the house, while older homes might still have galvanized pipe that can break during connections.
Two of the homeowners attending the Thursday meeting said their homes date to 1910 and 1922.
City utilities director Bob Tervonen said if the homeowner has to pay for replacing the galvanized pipes, he’d be willing to seek financial help that is available through various sources. The cost for pipe replacement is usually around $500, but can be higher, the citizens were told.
When Foley showed a photo of improvements that had been made at the Poplar-Ash intersection in a previous project, a few people attending the session said they would settle for the “before” pothole-filled street in the photo, because their neighborhood now has such poor streets.
The infrastructure project is planned for the neighborhood south of U.S. 2, north of Ayer Street, east of Lake Street and west of Luxmore, according to Tervonen.
