Cahokia Heights sewer repair project starts soon. Here’s how it will affect residents
Crews will soon begin to repair a portion of Cahokia Heights’ main sewer, called a trunkline, which collects the wastewater from all the other pipes in the system.
The project is expected to take about a year to complete, beginning this spring and wrapping up by spring 2025. It is part of the work planned to fix broken municipal infrastructure that has caused sewage to spill onto streets and into homes for decades.
Local leaders, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, and officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state and federal environmental protection agencies attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the project Monday morning where they emphasized the local, state and federal partnerships they said made the project possible.
The project is mostly funded by a $3.5 million grant that Durbin, D-Illinois, secured in President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Durbin said Monday that he sought the funding because the Army Corps of Engineers recommended prioritizing the project.
The city of Cahokia Heights is also using part of a $9.9 million grant from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to satisfy a $1.6 million matching funds requirement for the project.
“It’s a rare alignment of the stars that we get the community, the county, the state and the federal agencies all on the same sheet of music at the same time while funding is available, and we don’t want to miss these opportunities,” Colonel Andy Pannier, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District, said at the ceremony.
“This is the start of what we hope will continue to grow in momentum to help solve the problems of these communities that you’ve faced for decades.”
How the sewer project will affect residents
The entire trunkline is about 12 miles long, Jim Nold, senior project manager for Cahokia Heights’ engineering firm Hurst-Rosche, Inc., said at a recent town hall meeting. This project will repair three and a half miles of it.
The portion of the trunkline that will be repaired starts at the intersection of Jerome and Mousette lanes, runs down Jerome Lane and Range Lane, turns parallel to Illinois 157, turns parallel to the railroad tracks, and runs down East 5th Street, Illinois 3, Water Street and Levin Drive.
It is the deepest and largest section of the trunkline, according to Jacob Conway, the project leader for the Corps of Engineers, who also spoke at the town hall.
Nold said crews will clean the sewer, inspect it with a camera and insert an epoxy resin liner into the pipe to repair it without digging it up.
“It makes a new pipe inside of a pipe,” Nold said.
Crews will be accessing the sewer through manholes in the road, so there will be minor impacts on traffic, according to Conway.
Cahokia Heights residents will see crews directing traffic as the work begins, and they can expect to smell a resin odor when the work is underway.
Conway said some residents’ sewer service will be affected for “very short durations” when crews line parts of the sewer connected to their homes. The contractor will provide written notices to affected residents. Conway estimated the interruptions would be no more than eight hours.
