{"id":113762,"date":"2015-03-23T16:57:14","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T22:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/paradise-village-faces-sewer-work\/"},"modified":"2015-03-23T16:57:14","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T22:57:14","slug":"paradise-village-faces-sewer-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/paradise-village-faces-sewer-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradise Village faces sewer work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The City of Cortez Public Works Department and the Cortez Sanitation District are embarking a major overhaul of water and sewer lines, as well as roads, sidewalks and gutters in the Paradise Village neighborhood, off East Empire Street. The repairs are slated for completion in October.<\/span>Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The streets of the Paradise Village subdivision in Cortez are going to get worse before they get a whole lot better.<\/p>\n

Starting in June, the City of Cortez Public Works department and the Cortez Sanitation project are embarking on an extensive overhaul of the neighborhood\u2019s sewer and water infrastructure, according to a presentation held for neighbors on March 17.<\/p>\n

Officials explained that after the new lines are installed, the neighborhood is getting total street, sidewalk and gutter replacement. The project is set to wrap up in October<\/p>\n

While the news of the updates was welcome news for most, some questioned why their neighborhood was selected.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s largely concrete pipe infrastructure,\u201d said sanitation superintendent Phil Starks, adding that about 50 percent of the sewer lines\u2019 concrete walls have eroded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have trouble cleaning the lines because it strips it; we have to be extremely gentle. We\u2019d probably see a lot more sewer backups down the line if we don\u2019t get this replaced. \u2026 We\u2019re not just replacing them \u2013 we\u2019re upgrading to the newest industry standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, the neighborhood is built on hot soil, which means that the chemical makeup of the ground contributes to corrosion of its metal water lines.<\/p>\n

To mitigate the impact of the massive construction project, and minimize cost, the public works department will be coming in behind the sanitation district to repave roads, and install new rollback curbs and gutters.<\/p>\n

City Manager Shane Hale noted that the city had funds in this year\u2019s budget for road repairs, and because the Cortez Sanitation District received $1.09 million in grant funding for the water and sewer line repairs last fall, it made sense to coordinate together.<\/p>\n

After sewer and water line replacement, roads will be repaved, and sidewalks will be widened to four feet, which means streets will be slightly narrowed. It\u2019s possible that walks will encroach on some properties by a few inches, said Kathyrn Phillips, assistant city engineer. In those cases, any run-ins with fencing or sprinkler systems will be addressed by the contractor, Phillips said.<\/p>\n

As an additional perk, Phillips also noted that residents will have the option to have the lines that run from their house to the street replaced by the contractor for a competitive price negotiated by the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might behoove you to get it done now, it might be the cheapest way to get it done,\u201d said public works director Phil Johnson.<\/p>\n

All in all, officials made sure not to downplay the scope of the work and stressed to residents that communication between all parties involved was paramount to pulling off the project with minimal disruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an extensive project. We can\u2019t emphasize that enough. We\u2019re ripping up all hardscapes and closing streets so we can dig trenches four feet or more,\u201d said Phillips. \u201cWe\u2019re really, really trying to reduce the impact on you guys, and we\u2019re going to need your cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once a contractor is selected and an exact scope and schedule of street work is more clearly defined, the city is planning more meetings to keep residents in the loop of what to expect.<\/p>\n

While many in attendance Wednesday night had questions about trash pickup (it won\u2019t be affected), installation of fiber optics (not on the table now, but the city is looking into it). news of the work was welcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to say thank you, this is so exciting,\u201d said one resident.<\/p>\n

Assistant city engineer Kathryn Phillips is serving as public information officer on the Paradise Village project. For more information, call the public works office at 970-565-7320.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project set to end in October<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[459,21,13,1686],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-construction-and-property","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-heavy-construction"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113762"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}