Making the aging water pipes in three Hattiesburg communities new again will go a long way toward eliminating brown water and increasing water pressure, Mayor Toby Barker announced this week at Vernon Dahmer Park. Targeted for water line replacement are portions of Shadow Wood (Ward 3), Audubon-Westwood (Ward 4) and Country Club Road (Ward 5). Barker said water line improvements were emphasized during his 2017 campaign for mayor.
“In my 2½-year tenure, the city council in this administration has been proactive in replacing undersized water lines, which is one of the main causes of brown water,” he said. “These three projects will make significant progress toward eliminating these undersized lines, while providing more consistent water pressure and fewer recurrences of brown water.”
Barker said the first project that is now underway is Country Club Road, which is expected to be completed in late summer at a cost of $638,327.
“The other project takes place in two neighborhoods – one that will soon begin work is in the Audubon-Westwood neighborhood in Ward 4,” he said. “The bulk of that project will replace undersized 2-inch lines on Pineview, Evergreen, Woodhaven, Ridgeway and the southernmost parts of South 19th and The Terraces, replacing 2-inch lines with 6-inch and 8-inch ones. This part will begin in March, and we hope to be completed by the early fall.”
Upgrading the water lines in the Shadow Wood in Ward 3 is designed to eliminate the frequent water leaks in the area, Barker said. “This will replace those lines and include an upgrade that takes in the properly-sized lines,” he noted. “This part of the project will begin in late spring and be completed by the middle of the fall.”
The cost of the Audubon-Westwood and Shadow Wood projects will be $844,181. All of the projects will be paid for using a portion of the monthly water and sewer fees. Council members who also spoke during the presentation were President Carter Carroll of Ward 3, Ward 4’s Mary Dryden, and Ward 5’s Nicholas Brown.
Barker said residents who would be affected by the three construction projects have been notified about the upcoming work.
“We know the progress comes with some inconvenience,” he said. “We have reached out to residents at all three of these areas with letters, and we’ve held meetings in all three neighborhoods to go over the projects. Still, water projects are painful because typically some part of your yard will be dug up and disturbed. While we expect minimal disruption to service when we’re changing from old lines to new lines, we know that it takes a while for the construction to happen. Then we have to have the lines tested by the Department of Health and for the yards to be restored back to how they were before the projects began.
“However, in the end these neighborhoods will be better because of this investment, and we look forward to the end of all three projects,” he ended.