Elkhart’s Public Works Department is hoping to improve multiple aspects of the southeast downtown area with a new $5.5 million sewer project that broke ground Monday.
The main goal of the dig will be to install new, separate sewer and storm lines along High Street from the river to 5th Street and then down along 4th and 5th streets.
City utility engineer Paul Wunderlich explained that the combined sewer lines as currently constructed encounter difficulties when there’s a lot of rain and lead to sewage occasionally getting into the river.
“Because it’s a combined pipe, normally that’s going directly to our treatment plant, but when it rains it overflows,” Wunderlich said. “The EPA has required that we eliminate those and this project does just that.”
The construction will also replace all lead water pipes along those streets and build a new stormwater outfall.
But mayor Rod Roberson hopes the improvements aren’t just below ground. He said the new infrastructure along High and 5th Streets goes hand in hand with improvements coming to the Benham Avenue area that will make private investments in those neighborhoods more feasible.
“It allows us to be able to plan and design what goes on the street level surface so we can continue to enhance the economic development that occurs in that area,” Roberson said.
