Chicago Cures Ailing 100-Year-Old Sewers

摘要

By using cured-in-place pipes and aggressive community outreach, the city completed a high-profile trenchless sewer rehab with few complaints. When a large-diameter brick sewer collapsed on Chicago's north side during the cleaning stage of a city rehabilitation project in 2002, Chicago's Department of Water Management (DWM) decided to get proactive. Officials knew that time was running out before another such collapse could cause even worse damage to the city's aging sewer system. Not only would a sewer collapse result in months of repair, but since much of the area soil has a high sand content, the flows resulting from a sewer break could wash the soil away from water mains, leaving them unsupported and more vulnerable to failure. So, city engineers plotted a course for widespread repair, giving priority to areas with sandy soil and large-diameter brick pipe.