Exeter sewer project under Squamscott River costs soar above $10M

EXETER — Drilling equipment has broken under the Squamscott River amid an ongoing sewer pipe replacement project, the price of which could now rise above $10 million.

Crews were expected to pull the drill rods from the broken equipment out from under the river Tuesday as town officials waited for the estimated costs of the work to be finalized. Only a couple of weeks before, the Select Board learned the price of replacing two existing pipes and adding a third may rise to $3.5 million per pipe. The project was approved at Town Meeting 2020 at the cost of $1.6 million for just a single pipe addition running underneath the river to a pump station by Swasey Parkway.

Monday night, interim Public Works Director Paul Vlasich said that Tuesday would be a significant day as they examine the drill rods and hopefully learn how and where the drill broke under the river.

"It's really important to find out tomorrow," Vlasich said of Tuesday's work. He said contractors were suggesting "beefier" equipment for the drill work as a next step, crews having hit a surprising amount of ledge earlier this year that slowed the project.

At stake is the sewage flow for approximately 35% of the town, according to Vlasich. The pipes send sewage from the Jady Hill section of town which includes the Exeter Mill apartments as well as sections of the busy commercial corridor on Portsmouth Avenue, or Route 33. The pipes do not serve Exeter Hospital, according to Vlasich, which sends its flow through a different part of the town's system.

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The two existing pipes are corroded after being installed more than 50 years ago, their condition adding to the cost of the project and making its work more urgent according to Vlasich. He told board members in their Feb. 27 meeting that a failure of the pipes could mean the backup of sewage into people's homes.

"If something happened to the two existing siphon barrels, there's only so much flow that can be accumulated before it starts backing up into some basements and that sort of stuff," Vlasich said.

If the pipes were to fail, Vlasich said a contingency plan is in place for a pipe to be run from Jady Hill to the String Bridge and into a manhole that has enough capacity to handle the extra sewage. He said it would take up to four days to install the pipe, and vector trucks would carry the sewage to its destination from Jady Hill until it was installed.

Vlasich said the town has used such a contingency plan in the past, and that doing so would result in making the String Bridge one-way with jersey barriers blocking off the above-ground pipe. The pipe would be a monthly rental, he said.

"It would be a nuisance, but it would be sustainable for half a year or so," Vlasich said of renting the pipe.

Select Board members say they have been in contact with residents concerned about the project and its potential failure. Dan Chartrand, newly reelected to the board at the March 15 election, said he was asked by a resident for clarification on which parts of town are affected, to which Vlasich replied that it did include Portsmouth Avenue.

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Select Board member Nancy Belanger said at a prior meeting she was "going crazy" over whether a plan was in place to protect residents.

"I just want the people in town who might be affected by this (to know) that there's a plan," Belanger said. "Not a great plan right now, but a plan to prevent anything bad from happening in their homes."

The project was originally approved for $1.63 million at a Town Meeting in 2020, then the job strictly being to add a third siphon pipe to increase capacity to enable new development. The corrosion in the existing pipes was discovered as work crews were cleaning them, according to Vlasich. He said the pipes, located about 20 feet below the river, were drawing water into the pipe through their leak rather than pushing material out, indicating there was no threat of sewage entering the river.

Additional funds have come along the way in forms like federal funding through a bill pushed by U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas that brought $600,000 to the project. Select Board Chair Niko Papakonstantis said previously that it was yet to be determined how the town will cover the cost of a project that is now projected to rise into the multimillion-dollar price range.