YUMA, Ariz. – A Yuma neighborhood is in need of new water lines.
The City of Yuma says the current water lines at Pecan Grove Neighborhood are nearly 70 years old. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the average age of a water line when it breaks is 50 years.
“Some of the lines are over 100 years old, Pecan is not that old but they are significantly old, over 50 years, and that’s the design life of water lines,” said City of Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls, “When we went through the water increase process a year to a year and a half ago, it was clear that our system was in desperate need of upgrades.”
Another issue the city ran into was the water lines were located in the back yards of the homes, making it difficult for the city to go in and do repairs. Nicholls says replacing the pipes is the first step in improving the water quality in Yuma.
Nicholls says, “This is a way to reinforce the system and make sure we are doing incremental improvements as funding becomes available and improve the water quality and water conditions.”
The Yuma City Council decided Wednesday night that local company DPE Construction will be replacing the water lines. The city will pay DPE $407,000.
Nicholls says, “It’s a local company with local workers and all that money will stay local so we are happy about that.”
The construction will start in the next few weeks and should be a couple of months before the lines are installed and ready to go.
“Typically, a project begins within a couple of weeks after council approval so I would anticipate in the next two to three weeks we’ll start working on it and would probably take only a couple of months,” said Nicholls.
The current water lines will be abandoned and left in the ground.