Route 114 closures will last a month in Bristol

Ferry Road is closed to most traffic while crews install a new sewer main

By Scott Pickering
Posted 11/15/17

The south end of Bristol will be torn up and blocked to most motorists for about a month, while crews from C.B. Utility replace the sewer main that connects from Roger Williams University to the …

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Route 114 closures will last a month in Bristol

Ferry Road is closed to most traffic while crews install a new sewer main

Posted

The south end of Bristol will be torn up and blocked to most motorists for about a month, while crews from C.B. Utility replace the sewer main that connects from Roger Williams University to the town’s main treatment plant three-quarters of a mile away.

Workers from C.B. Utility in Bristol, low bidders for the work, began the $1.9 million project on Monday morning. According to Bristol Water Pollution Control Superintendent Jose DaSilva, they will be working Monday to Friday from now until mid-December to replace an old 8-inch sewer line with a system of larger 12-inch and 15-inch PVC sewer pipes.

“Their goal is to be at Griswold Avenue by Dec. 15, then shut down and start up again in the spring,” Mr. DaSilva said.

He described the need for the new line by offering a history lesson. The original sewer pipe in that area was installed as an eight-inch line that led to a Nike missile site during the Cold War. The line was extended when the Ambrose Court neighborhood was built, and it was extended again when a little community college was started at the south end of town.

“The college had a 12-inch pipe connecting to an eight-inch pipe, and that created a bottleneck,” Mr. DaSilva said. “Then that little community college became the university it is now. We’ve had a couple of collapses of asbestos sections of the pipe, and then Roger Williams started talking to us about moving students out of the Almeida Apartments (on Bayview Avenue) onto campus.” That’s when Mr. DaSilva and the Town of Bristol said, in effect, “hold on.”

“We told them they can’t expand until we fix and replace that pipe,” Town Administrator Steven Contente said.

Roger Williams initially refused to help pay. As the town’s largest sewer customer — the university is paying $412,326 in sewer use fees this year — they felt they were paying their share. Furthermore, they would not be adding burden to the sewer system, only shifting it from one area of town (Almeida Apartments) to another (the main campus).

But negotiations continued, and the university eventually agreed to a $500,000 contribution to the overall cost of the project.

“This whole project will add capacity, change the pitch of the line a bit, and we’ll allow the flow to be what it needs to be,” Mr. DaSilva said.

Bristol is paying its share through long-term borrowing approved by voters during the 2016 election.

Mr. DaSilva said though Ferry Road is closed to non-local motorists, crews and police officers are doing their best to keep it accessible to residents of the area, as well as delivery drivers, or other essential traffic. For motorists heading south, traffic is being diverted at the intersection with Wood Street, back north to Woodlawn Avenue, and then to Route 136. For motorists heading north, it is being diverted near the entrance of the university onto Metacom Avenue.

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.