Osprey lift station delays continue

A $9.5 million lift-station project timeline is off schedule because of digging issues under Hudson Bayou.
The problems will push back the start of the lift station’s operation until July of this year or later. The lift station was supposed to begin accepting sewage no later than June.

A lift station is placed at a point in a sewer system where water needs to be pumped, or lifted, to a higher elevation, so that gravity can be used to bring that water to a treatment plant.

The Hudson Bayou project, which will leave city residents with detours into 2013, is the largest lift-station project the city has ever undertaken and one of the largest projects of its kind ever permitted in the state of Florida. The project began in May 2011.

In November, a drill got stuck while digging for future pipe placement because of a miscalculation error at the lift station project in Lukewood Park, which is located where U.S. 41 and U.S. 301 intersect.

Mary Ellen Maurer, project engineer for the Osprey Avenue/Lukewood utility project said tunneling issues for underground pipes continue to delay the project.

“There have been several failed tunneling attempts,” said Maurer, who said alternative piping methods are also being considered for the project.

“Going under the bayou has been a hurdle, and, for each day the section is not complete, we lose a day off our timeline.”

That timeline originally had the project complete by November, but Maurer said road closures and detours would most likely continue into 2013.

“I don’t think a November completion date is realistically attainable any longer,” Maurer said.

Osprey Avenue will be closed to traffic from Mound Street (U.S. 41) to Ringling Boulevard starting Monday, April 30, as the contractor installs a force main connection between Brother Geenan Way and Mound Street. The detour route for the road closure, which is scheduled for two months, is U.S. 301 for southbound traffic and Orange Avenue for northbound traffic.

Then, in June, Osprey Avenue will be closed from Lincoln Avenue to Alta Vista Street before it’s reopened in October.

Meanwhile, foundations have already been poured and construction is mostly complete on four buildings and a well that make up the lift station.

The lift station is a long time coming.

In 2005, about 570,000 gallons of raw sewage leaked out of Lift Station 7 onto Pomelo Avenue and into Hudson Bayou.

A subsequent investigation discovered the city did not inform residents that a 500,000-gallon spill from the same lift station occurred just a year earlier.

The investigation paved the way for the capital-improvement project, which is creating a new lift station with a higher capacity and odor control capability that sits further away from the water.

According to the city, it will be a state-of-the-art lift station, with a back-up diesel system in case of power outages and odor control.

“We are doing everything we can to speed up the process and get it done as soon as possible,” Maurer said.