By Mike Kruzman / news@whmi.com


A road project in the City of Fenton has uncovered needed attention to a pair of water mains below the surface.

Water mains in the Shiawassee Road-area have been found to be problematic, leading officials to abandon 2 of them. A 4-inch main that runs down Shiawassee, under Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy rules, must be abandoned due to its small size. There is a 12-inch main that runs down the road that the majority of homes were thought to be tapped into, but in fact, most were connected to the smaller one. Those will now be connected to the larger main, which will also have new valves added between Fenway Drive and Adelaide Street. Insertion valves will be used to prevent any interruption of service. On nearby George Street, it was discovered that 5 homes are connected to 2-inch galvanized pipe. This pipe is considered to be a lead service line and will be abandoned in favor of an 8-inch main with service lines being replaced. Under new lead and copper rules, the responsibility for these costs fall with the city, and not homeowners.

With the City on a tight construction schedule as fall approaches, City manager Lynn Markland told Council during their Tuesday work session that they’ve had to go ahead and actually start this work before the added costs could be approved. He told, in the interest of transparency, that they couldn’t stop the work because of the street work coming up.

The total costs are projected to come in just under $213,000. City Council unanimously approved a motion to support that.