-Click to see September 19, 2011 Centralia Sentinel article-

      For many years the Village of Central City experienced pump failures and area flooding in their sanitary sewer system.  In 2007 they decided to dedicate some time and funds to reduce the amount of storm water entering the sanitary sewer system and lower their cost of operation and maintenance.

      The first step of this process was smoking the sanitary sewer system.  During the sewer smoking it was not possible to determine the size of the leak or the cause, just that there are leaks that need further investigation. 

      The next step was to TV the sewers that were suspect, as indicated in the smoking process.  During the TV investigation, we found a very large leak.  The following video clips identiry this leak and how it was successfully fixed.

      This video shows some broken pipe and the large leak.  Note the broken pipe at 334’.  This break was leaking and needed to be repaired.  The dark area around the break indicated infiltration of ground water.  The large leak was found at 346’.  It was obvious that this entire line segment should be repaired. 

      This line segment is running parallel to and within 10’ of a drainage ditch that has water present a majority of the time.  Since this line was very close to the ditch, it was more cost effective to install a liner in the existing line than to excavate and replace this line.

      This next video was taken after the repair started.  With the leak being so large, the leak had to be reduced in order to install a liner.  The method of reducing the leaks was to grout the joints with a chemical grout.  This grout was pumped onto the leaks.  The grout cures in the leak and on the outside of the pipe.  The white material on the inside of the pipe is the grout.  As you can see, the leak was greatly reduced by this grouting process.

      This next video was taken after the liner was installed.  You can see the lines of the broken pipe at 338’ and the leaking joint repair at 345’, but no leakage now that the liner is installed.

      By repairing this leak, the city noted a 30% reduction of flow to the sewage lagoon.  This means that there was a 30% reduction in pumping cost of 2 major pump stations.  This project reduced the cost of operation and maintenance of the pump station while improving the efficiency of the lagoon system.