When the Mahoning County sanitary engineers have a project to lay sewer lines, it typically means a lot of digging up front yards and driveways. However, a new process may soon change all that.
"We're using a new technique called directional drilling," said Robert Lyden, Mahoning County's sanitary engineer, "which is the same kind of drilling that they're using on this Marcellus Shale, that we've heard a lot about. This way, we drill 500 feet at a time. We do not tear up any driveways, yards, landscaping or anything else."
Contractors are using this on a project on Lockwood Boulevard in Boardman. They are piecing together long sections of 12-inch pipe. The pipe is then pulled underground by a drill.
"This is 4,000 feet," said Lyden. "It will be a series of 500- to 800-foot bores. So we only disturb an area maybe 40 feet in diameter, every 500 feet, versus digging a trench all the way down, with all the impact that would have."
While the process is more expensive than the traditional trench digging, it saves money on clean up, and reseeding of residents' property.
Drilling can also help keep traffic flowing.
"We don't have all the bedding, the slag that would go around the pipe," said Lyden. "We don't have the loaders backing out on to the street all the time. We don't have piles of dirt as we continually go along the street right there. It helps traffic very much."
