South Glens Falls sewage pipe fix at Glens Falls bridge is ‘nearly done’

Chronicle Managing Editor Cathy DeDe writes: South Glens Falls has nearly finished replacing the mainline sewage-wastewater pipe that broke under the Route 9 bridge to Glens Falls on March 5.

“The pipe is completely replaced. It’s all brand new, rock solid…finished,” Village Trustee Claude Middleton, who serves on the Water and Sewer Committee, tells The Chronicle. “We’re in the process of finishing the insulation, picking up our mess and going on.”

He said Tuesday, “Glens Falls still has to do some work on their line, which should be three or four days.”

The break occurred on the Glens Falls side of the bridge, at Oakland Avenue. The pipeline is owned by the Village of South Glens Falls.

The replaced pipe is about 140 feet long, Mr. Middleton said, extending from under the west side of the bridge to about 15 feet past the east side of the bridge, toward Oakland Avenue.

Cost is still to be determined, he said.

The replacement job “was pretty quick,” Mr. Middleton said. “It could have been quicker, but you have to source all the material. You have to wait for the engineering to be approved by Department of Transportation. There’s some things that have to be done right in order to be compliant.”

“We were pretty efficient, between the engineering firm and the contractor. I think it went pretty well.”

An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 gallons of so-called “brown water” leaked into the Feeder Canal over less than an hour from when the break was discovered to when the broken pipe was shut down, Mr. Middleton said at the time.

“Brown water is 99% water,” he said then, deeming the potential for contamination as negligible, given there is little to no water currently in the canal.

Regarding any impact to the canal, Mr. Middleton said on Tuesday, “We’re still waiting to hear from the Department of Environmental Conservation.”

Feeder Canal Alliance: Reminder to upkeep, grateful for the fix

The SGF sewage pipe leak was an unfortunate revelation,” Feeder Canal Alliance Director Ardie Russell told The Chronicle. “Aging infrastructure is an age old, high-cost predicament for all our communities. Fortunately, the Feeder Canal itself will recover from the spill. I see this incident as a moment to educate the public about the cost of responsible maintenance.

“Remediation is our tax dollars hard at work and I appreciate all the time and energy our civic sector is putting forth for us!” — Cathy DeDe

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