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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCorrespondence 4646 Dakota Street S.E. Prior Lake, MN 55372-1714 August 28, 2008 James Weninger Holy Trinity United Methodist Church 16150 Arcadia Avenue SE Prior Lake, MN 55372 RE: SANITARYSEWERSERVICE Dear Mr. Weninger: I received your letter dated August 18th 2008 requesting reimbursement by the City for the recent Holy Trinity United Medodist Church sanitary sewer service repair. I also received your e-mail dated August 20th 2008 responding to my e-mail from August 20th, 2008. In order to document this issue appropriately, I have included some of the information contained in my e-mail within the context ofthis letter. Holy Trinity United Methodist Church had been experiencing sewer issues associated with the service line which flows to the north into the Dakota Street sanitary sewer. Recently a plumber hired by the church, televised the sewer line and discovered an offset in the service pipe. The church then hired Star Plumbing to excavate the service and repair the offset pipe. On Monday August 18, 2008, Star Plumbing excavated the area between the sidewalk and the curb on the north side of the church near Dakota Street. As they excavated, they were able to find the offset of the pipe at a rubber Femco. There was no evidence that a private utility company was responsible for creating the service offset. The offset could have been created based on lack of compaction at the time of initial construction or created by earth forces during the freeze thaw cycle. The depth of this sanitary service appeared to be about 5-6 feet deep. Star Plumbing repaired the sewer service with PVC pipe and included a new sanitary sewer service cleanout in the boulevard. The information on this site was difficult to accumulate. A lot of the work associated with this site was done prior to 1990. Holy Trinity Church has been located on this property since sometime around 1900. In the 1980's an addition was added to the church. In 2000 the church completed some remodeling. At the time of the remodeling, a water service issue was corrected. G:\Property Records\Holy Trinity Church letter0828~.cityofpriorlake.com Phone 952.447.9800 / Fax 952.447.4245 Public utilities were constructed on Dakota in 1959 and 1960. As-built #18 from 1959 shows the service to the church property which ran to the east on Dakota and down Arcadia toward County Road 21. As-built # 34 built in 1960 also provided service to the property near the current parking lot. This sanitary main runs down Dakota Street to the west and is at a lower elevation than the line running to the east. In 1992 the City reconstructed Dakota Street. The reconstruction consisted of placing concrete curb and gutter and replacing the street. No sewer ofwatermain work was part of the as-built record in this area. The as-built drawings show service lines to this property that do not match the line uncovered by Star Plumbing on August 18, 2008. Since the services from the as-built do not match the service encountered by Star Plumbing, it can be assumed that the service line was constructed in the 1980's at the time of the church addition. At the time of the church addition it appears that the service lines dedicated and constructed in 1959 and 1960 did not work for the church and they ran a new service line into the manhole off Dakota Street heading west. The sanitary service line dedicated to the property from as-built #18 may have been at an elevation too high for the church to connect and thus the reason the church constructed a new service line to the manhole from as-built #34. The manhole from as-built #34 is located at the bottom ofthe hill on Dakota. The only work I have found that the City performed on utilities in this area is the 1959 and 1960 initial construction of the sewer and watermain. While this did include the service stubs, it is apparent that these stubs were not used by the church. The as-builts from the 1992 reconstruction of Dakota Street do not show any modification to the utilities. Based on the information I have found, I do not recommend that the City participate in the cost of the sewer service repair. If you or the church have documents that demonstrate that the City installed or modified this service stub we could re-evaluate this position. Another option is to submit a claim to the City's insurance company. The recent rain has caused some soil erosion at the point of the sanitary sewer service repair. Please have your Contractor finish the restoration of this area and clean up the soil that was transported to the Church parking lot entrance. This work should be done as soon as possible so that no further erosion occurs. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this matter further, please contact me at 952-447-9832. s~~ Larry Poppler, P.E. Assistant City Engineer City of Prior Lake CC: Frank Boyles, City Manager Steve Albrecht, Public Works Director G:\Property-Records\Holy Trinity Church letter08280B.doc Holy Trinity United Methodist Church 16150 Arcadia Avenue SE · Prior Lake, Minnesota 55372 · (612) 447-2990 df C!a."""9 t!1w.Ja gamily August 18, 2008 ~~@~DW~W ill] AUG 2 0 2008 W City of Prior Lake Assistant City Engineer Larry Poppler 4646 Dakota Street Prior Lake, MN 55372-1714 By Dear Larry, This is to follow up on our conversation regarding the sewer work done at our church today. I noted our plumber found damaged sewer line that is a result of some previous street work. There was a clamp type fitting holding the pipe together at the boundary of the street and the boulevard. The rest of the system had the old hub type fittings. The hubless fitting had been knocked out of alignment (see attached picture). This was located directly under the curb of the street. To our recollection we have commissioned no work at this point of the sewer line. My recollection is the last work done in the area was rebuilding of the street, which included the sewer. When the street was rebuilt the grade on Dakota Street was changed and I seem to recall some sewer work being done by the city at that time. It is obvious some damage was done to our sewer line by someone working I the area. CenterPoint Energy is going to take care of some damage that was done to their gas line, which appears to have been done at the same time as the sewer pipe damage. Integra said that they have not worked in that area since the 1960's. Larry, having been around when the street work was done the most likely scenario would seem to be the contractor doing the work for the city needed to rerun our sewer line and sometime during that work the sewer line was hit or improperly back filled resulting in the problem we have had to correct. I understand the cities policy that it is only responsible for the sewer under the street but, I feel we have a good case to indicate this problem was caused the improper installation by a city contractor. Thank you for taking this problem under consideration. Sincerely,. ~, f:}.t~ 7YJ1111/t lr lj~~ Weninger, Tr6'stee Holy Trinity United Methodist Church Encl. i. . i.... '''lIIi ill ill. ila ... ~..__ ..... '.:;;1 I! .1.... jii.!. it Page 1 of2 Larry Poppler From: Larry Poppler Sent: Wednesday, August 20,20089:06 AM To: 'james_weninger@irco.com' Cc: Steve Albrecht; Frank Boyles Subject: Trinity Church Sewer Jim, Trinity Church has been experiencing sewer issues associated with the service line ~ch flows to the north into the Dakota Street sanitary sewer. Recently a plumber hired by the church, televised the sewer line and discovered an offset in the service pipe. The church then hired Star Plumbing to excavate the service and repair the offset pipe. On Monday August 18, 2008, Star Plumbing excavated the area between the sidewalk and the curb on the north side of the church near Dakota Street. As they excavated to the service pipe they were able to find the offset. The offset was located on the service pipe at a rubber Fernco. There was no evidence that a private utility company was responsible for creating the service offset. The offset could have been created based on lack of compaction at the time of initial construction or created by earth forces during the freeze thaw cycle. The depth of this sanitary service appeared to be about 5-6 feet deep. Star Plumbing repaired the sewer service with PVC pipe and included a new sanitary sewer service clean out in the boulevard. The information I was able to gather on this site was difficult to accumulate. A lot of the work associated with this site was done prior to 1990. Records prior to 1990 are difficult to find. Trinity Church has been located on this property since sometime around 1900. In the 1980's an addition was added to the church. In 2000 the church built an education building to the south. Public utilities were constructed on Dakota in 1959 and 1960. The as-built number 18 built in 1959 provided service to the church property which ran to the east on Dakota and down Arcadia toward County Road 21. The as-built number 34 built in 1960 also provided service to the property near the current parking lot. This sanitary main runs down Dakota Street to the west and is at a lower elevation than the line running to the east. In 1992 the City reconstructed Dakota Street. The reconstruction consisted of placing concrete curb and gutter and replacing the street. No sewer of watermain work was part of the as-built record in this area. The as-built drawings show service lines to this property that do not match the line uncovered by Star Plumbing on August 18, 2008. Since the services from the as-built do not match the service encountered by Star Plumbing, it can be assumed that the service line was constructed in the 1980's at the time of the church addition. At the time of the church addition it appears that the service lines dedicated and constructed in 1959 and 1960 did not work for the church and they ran a new service line into the manhole from as-built number 34. The sanitary line dedicated to the property from as-built number 18 may have been at an elevation too high for the church to connect and thus the reason the church constructed a new service line to the manhole from as-built number 34. The manhole from as-built 34 is at the bottom of the hill on Dakota. The only work I have found that the City performed on utilities in this area is the 1959 and 1960 initial construction of the sewer and watermain. While this did include the service stubs, it is apparent that these stubs were not used by the church. Based on the above information I have gathered on this, I do not recommend that the City be responsible for paying the cost of the sewer service repair. As I mentioned to you on Monday, if you would like to ask for reimbursement of this work by the City, please write a letter to the City asking for this reimbursement. The letter should contain reasons for the City to participate in the cost of this repair. If you or the church have documents that support your position, please include a copy of those records with your letter. The City can then officially respond to your request for reimbursement for this sewer service repair. Sincerely, Larry Poppler, P.E. Assistant City Engineer City of Prior Lake 4646 Dakota Street SE Prior Lake, MN 55372 952-447-9832 lpoppler@cityofpriorlake.com Email Updates. Sign up now. 8/20/2008 City of Prior Lake Daily Report PAGE ? OF I CLIENT PROJECT Huly Tr,."Ny G~v~c; '-1 CONTRACTOR (PRIME/SUB) 5 -I-c. r P Iv ~"'" b.),.,5 , TEMP. RANGE ~ S - 7 c) WIND L~ 'fJ'4 f. CLOUD OVER v DATE g..19-o~ S(j)TWT FS SUPERINTENDENT Je e 6 ?D PRECIPITATION ,Nc> ...c. PIPE ~n~ ~AI=W 1 -2 CAJ.lB SIZE-TYPE ~ I!NO STA .~; - 5N == i/:' PVL CALC TV SPE( .G RAN. = IfIA Y = ALC TH F^"~U&N Jot VALVES. FITTINGS. HYDRANTS. MANHOLES 2 AND CATCH BASINS STARTnME q'oD S1IIkln W ~ SiD END nME i: oi) COMMENTS: III E- ISrJ./. t' c.."r MILEAGE: TOTAL HOURS: INSPECTOR: L./. S- ~~~ INSPECTION TIME: JOB NUMBER: <1 ;00 TO: / ~3D , "