An infrastructure project will start soon in Jefferson.

This past November, the Jefferson City Council approved a $335,835 contract to AccuJet in Perry for a sewer lining project. Public Works Director Dave Morlan says this kind of project can stretch to around 60 blocks worth of slip-lining sewer lines.

“What they do is they have, like a sleeve if you will, and they kind of inflate it, and it flows down through the main. There’s two different ways they can cure it to what’s there. One is with UV (ultraviolet) light and the other one is with steam. After they cure it, then they’ve got to go back, wherever there’s a sewer line, they have to go back and cut a hole in that so that it can flow again.”    

The Council approved $306,000 of the project to be paid for by the city’s allocation from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and the rest is paid by Local Option Sales and Services Tax (LOSST). Morlan notes by doing this kind of preventative maintenance, it will help prolong the existing sewer lines to not have to be replaced as quickly.

Morlan talks about another type of preventative maintenance that was done last year was having sewer lines jetted as well. He points out one type of issue that causes problems within the sewer lines.

“Our worst enemy in the sewer lines is grease. People put grease down the drains. It’ll get out into our mains, it’ll find an obstruction somewhere and it plugs the main up. That’s the cause of most of our backups that we have.”    

Morlan requests residents to put their grease into a container and wait until it hardens and he asks that it be put into the trash.