Project Manager Craig Fore oversees the boring and installation project for the Wimberley sewer system. PHOTO BY GARY ZUPANCIC/WIMBERLEY VIEW
Sewer system nears estimated completion date
The sewer system project for the city of Wimberley is nearing completion as the final phase of the project to reach from the bridge over Cypress Creek to the lift station by H-E-B is under construction.
“We hope to be done by the first of July and to be operational by the middle of July,” Craig Fore, project manager, said.
The company boring from the H-E-B lift station to the point where the pipeline will cross the creek is Patriot Underground. They started at the lift station and are moving toward the creek.
“They have about 500 feet left, and then they will be complete with the installation and making a few connections,” Fore said late last week. “I think they will be done by the middle of June.”
Capital Excavation, which constructed the sewer system south of Cypress Creek, will be back on the job starting this week. Capital will have to bore from the parking lot in front of the Wimberley Café down to the bridge. Fore said this bore should take one day to complete and will be done overnight. It is not expected to have an impact on traffic or business operations.
Another company will then come in to attach a protective casing pipe to the downstream side of the bridge, which will house the sewage line as it crosses the creek.
“They will put scaffolding on the downstream side of the bridge, attach brackets to the bridge and put a casing pipe on the outside of it,” Fore said. “…That will take about three weeks. I do not expect that to impact traffic at all.”
The project is nearing completion after many delays, the most recent of which were related to the Texas Water Development Board, the COVID-19 pandemic and the February freeze.
“Patriot Underground was supposed to start in December, and we had to wait on Texas Water Development Board to approve the paperwork. So they didn’t get started until April,” Fore said. “Then supplies were impacted by the freeze and COVID, so we had to wait six weeks for supplies. Had it not been for COVID or the freeze, we’d have been done in the middle of May.”