GREENFIELD — A nearly $88,000 state Department of Environmental Protection grant will allow the city to evaluate and catalog its water and sewer infrastructure to help develop a comprehensive asset management plan that will guide future upgrades and proactively identify potential problem areas.
“The DPW has mountains of data relating to our water and sewer infrastructure in paper and electronic files dating back over a century,” Public Works Director Marlo Warner II said in a statement. “This project will bring many of these files under one umbrella for easy use and planning for the future.”
Warner said the project will also involve a level of evaluation of all the city’s water and wastewater facilities. The evaluation will focus on the condition of the 110 miles of waterline, as well as review relevant history and whether a pipe has any fail points.
“That will give us indicators of what we need to do going forward with all the regulatory changes, where our facilities are at and if we need to upgrade,” Warner said. Asset management “points us in the right direction for future construction and replacement of systems.”
He referred to a series of “exceptional” water main breaks that occurred over the summer. This project will help determine whether any water mains require replacement.
“We had a main break on Main Street,” Warner said. “But does it need to change? Not necessarily; we look at the history.”
The asset management plan is required by the Department of Environmental Protection under the sanitary survey performed in August 2020, a city press release states.
With city matching funds of $45,266 and in-kind services of $13,157 (services provided by the DPW to the consulting firm), the project totals $146,057, according to the release. Work will begin this summer and is expected to be finished by the end of the calendar year.
“Asset management is important to any community,” Warner said. “It gives us an opportunity to form — in a timely fashion — a plan moving forward on capital projects that need to be done.”
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne