By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald staff writer
It may have hit a few snags along the way, but project managers say that the sewer rehabilitation project along Kalanianaole Avenue in Hilo should be complete by the end of the month.
Isemoto Contracting Co. crews began the $7.5 million project in September, working to slipline 4,800 feet of new pipe through the existing sewer pipe between Keaa Street and Baker Avenue in Keaukaha. The existing pipe, which was installed in the 1960s, had reached the end of its life expectancy due to deterioration from sewer gas.
The sliplining process involved pushing and pulling a new fiberglass pipe, which measures between 42 and 34 inches in diameter, through the existing pipe, measuring between 36 and 48 inches in diameter. The installation process took about seven months, and required months of traffic rerouting from Kalanianaole onto parallel roads through neighborhoods.
Now that the installation process is complete, traffic can stay on Kalanianaole, said Riz Mangaoang, with the Hawaii County Public Works Engineering Department. But occasional delays can still be expected this month as workers finish up the rehabilitation process.
“The remaining work on the project, we’re looking to rehabilitate the sewer manholes by installing manhole liners,” he said Monday, “as well as grouting the annular spaces between the liner and the existing manholes.”
The new manhole liners will be made of the same fiberglass material as the new sewer pipe, he said.
There are a total of 17 manholes along the stretch of road. Mangaoang was unable to say how many of the manholes already had been rehabilitated, or how many remained to be complete. He also couldn’t give a specific completion date, saying only that he expected the work to be done in June.
Isemoto is working to complete the work mainly in the evenings to avoid traffic disruptions, he added.
“The night work has been ongoing for a few weeks now, and any roadblocks will be mainly stop-and-go traffic,” he said. “There will be no more major detours.”
Traffic will also be diverted beginning today and running through the end of the project between Keaa Street and Kumau Street. Lanes will narrow and be moved slightly to the side of the road in the vicinity of the Hilo Power Storage Property, with both Keaukaha- and Hilo-bound lanes remaining open, according to an Isemoto project engineer named Jason, who declined to provide his last name.
The work at that location will involve filling the space between the old pipe and the new pipe with grout, to help protect the new sewer line, he said.
Initially, project managers said they hoped to have the work done in mid-April, before summer traffic into Keaukaha increased. But the project has hit a few speed bumps, including more advanced deterioration of the existing sewer line that slowed things down.
“We’re hoping to be wrapping this thing up in June and to get out of there,” Jason said. “For the most part, we expected to be off the roadways by now, but a lot of it depended on the weather cooperating and everything else. … We’re trying to impact traffic as little as possible.”
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
