Massive Sewer Replacement Line Almost Completed

Construction crews have almost completed a massive sewer line replacement project that dug up yards through some of Centreville’s toniest neighborhoods and cut through the environmentally sensitive Cub Run Stream Valley Park and its popular walking trails.

The Upper Occoquan Service Authority should finish replacing about five miles of sewer line later this month in the Cub Run Gravity Delivery System, which serves Centreville and surrounding communities, said Mike Reach, deputy executive director at the authority. Final landscaping and other mitigation will be completed this summer. 

Digging on the $10.5 million project started last year when crews dragged construction equipment into the yards of homes in Virginia Run and those abutting the Chantilly National Golf Course. 

Residents were naturally wary, Reach said, when they saw massive back hoes, cranes and trenching equipment being trucked to just within a couple hundred feet of their bedrooms.

“People were upset,” Reach said, “they were suspicious that we were not going to be a good neighbor. We worked really hard to show them that we were sincere in trying to do a good job and I think we won them over.”

As part of the goodwill effort, the authority installed a pair of new pedestrian bridges to replace wet-weather crossings on the trail network in the park. A new 100-foot, arched bridge has been installed; landscaping and paving on the approach to the bridge was finished up this week, Reach said.  A second shorter bridge is to be installed later this month.

 And, construction crews had to be careful while digging through the well-liked park, considered a pristine greenway for residents who want to escape the daily hubbub of suburban life and commune with Northern Virginia’s natural flora and fauna. As part of that, crews worked with the Fairfax County Park Authority to mitigate environmental concerns.

“Before we started, we went through the park turning over logs looking for frogs and turtles that could be harmed,” by the construction,” Reach said. “Some older trees had to come down, but the crews snaked around as many as they could to avoid cutting them down.”

The crews worked at surprising speed, but not everything went smoothly.  The construction crew got an unpleasant shock when it opened up the pipe that ran through a narrow 140-foot tunnel under Route 29. Instead of sand, the pipe was seated in place by an encircling wall of concrete that was poured as insulating material when the pipe was laid in the mid-1970s.

Closing Route 29 to pull out the pipe from the surface would have been expensive and a disaster for commuters. Instead, the contractor brought in a two-man crew from Texas who climbed into the slender tunnel and hacked out the circle of concrete with hand jack-hammers. 

“It was dirty, unpleasant work, but they got it done,” Reach said.

 The pipeline delivers raw sewage to the authority’s Cub Run Pump Station. Constructed in the 1970s, the pipeline was old and nearing its capacity. The new 42-inch pipe is made of materials designed to be impervious to the elements and should be a permanent replacement for sewer system, Reach said.

 As the crews are finishing up, residents in the area gave the project two thumbs up.

Bob Brothers, who lives near the construction entrance into the park, said the crew did an excellent job.

“I have to give them an A-plus,” Brothers said. “They did a really good job. They were even out here cleaning up the street every day.”