11,000 ft of new Town lines: FUD’s 18-month P-1
Promising to make a strong effort to limit traffic disruption in Town, especially along Concord Road and Campbell Station Road during the next roughly 18 months of construction — the first time period of two phases — First Utility District soon will begin the process toward replacing about 11,000 feet of Town sewer lines that are roughly 50 years old.
“FUD is about to begin construction of a sewer line project ... through the Campbell Station corridor,” an FUD press release stated.
“We expect to begin work around (Friday), Nov 1, and the project will run for about 1.5 years,” the release further stated.
“We are working to educate the public about what we are doing, why we are doing it and what they can expect during construction.”
Being done at no cost to the Town or any taxpayers, FUD said the project — estimated to cost $8.7 million in phase I alone — will not cause a rate increase of any dimension more that what current FUD customers annually pay, which is 3 percent.
“We’ve recently been before the Town Board of Mayor and Aldermen, and we plan to be communicating with our customers through direct notice, website content, social media, etc.,” the FUD release also stated.
“We have master-planned growth in the community, both current and ongoing, and we’re working to make sure our sewer infrastructure is in place and ready to support that in a sustainable way,” said Edwin Deyton, FUD engineering supervisor.
“The intent of the project is to replace existing 1970s lines. They have served us well to this point, but the community has changed a lot since the 1970s, sowe’re in the process of upgrading those to support our future needs.
“The old diameters working from upstream to downstream are 12 to 24-inch pipes, and we’re increasing those to be as large as 30-inch on the southern end of our work site and increasing to 18-inch on the northern end,” he added. “It will generally all be a replacement of existing lines.”
The future second phase “will be about 5,000 feet of line upgrade, and that will probably be a year to a year-and-a half contract to work our way up to Interstate 40(75),” Deyton said. “This work is being conducted in phasing due to cash flow and constructability.”
The FUD official estimated about phase II, “I would expect that to be in 2027 and 2028.“We’ve tried to time that work to be connecting to the future Campbell Station Interchange Project that TDOT is doing, but that’s been rescheduled somewhat indefinitely. So we’re just making sure we’re in position to line up with that future interchange project,” he added.
To clarify the project’s need, “A lot of what we’re doing is being proactive; we don’t currently have problems, and we’re doing this work to make sure that we can continue to serve both the current and future public in a good way,” Deyton said.
As for limiting any disruption to traffic, “The work is generally going to be on a 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. workday, Monday through Friday,” he said.
“We will have some limited road closures,” Deyton added. “The first one will be at the beginning of the job at Turkey Creek Road, just west of Concord Road (intersection).
“We will have a short term where we have some posted detours while we cross those lanes of traffic.”
Some of the public impacts “that we will have (include) some short-term closures of sidewalks and greenways, and those will be posted with temporary traffic control signage,” Deyton said. “We’ll make proactive communication with the public through direct customer notices, Facebook post, visible signage to motorists and pedestrians.
“Much of the work is going to be done on existing first utility district easements,” he added. “There are places where we cross public roads, but those are generally existing crossings, and we’re just improving those. We’re not creating any new road crossings in connection with this work. It’s upgrading the existing ones.
“There will be a limited closure” of one intersection in Village Green, “but that’s likely to be at least a year away and will probably be a one- to two-week road closure with a posted detour.”
Sometime in early spring of 2025, Deyton estimated, the southern parking area of Founders Park at Campbell Station (to the left entering the main entrance), “will be closed for several months while we’re doing sewer line replacement through Founders Park.”
About the $8.7 million estimated project cost for phase I, “First Utility does not receive money or any fund appropriation from Knox County or the town of Farragut,” the FUD official said.
“Our project is funded through cash received through our rate revenues. It’s out of our existing budget that we’re funding through cash. There’s no incidental rate increase associated with the project. It’s already budgeted, appropriated work.”
Deyton said Town officials have been quite cooperative in communicating with FUD.
