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Over the next year, the city will pay a consultant to examine how to best reduce sewer overflows downtown.
The Fort Wayne Board of Public Works on Wednesday hired VS Engineering Inc. for $327,400 to complete a downtown stormwater-sewer master plan.
Anne Marie Smrchek, stormwater program manager for City Utilities, said the majority of the downtown area has combined sewers – ones that accept both sewage and rainwater.
As the city looks to reduce the amount of sewage that flows into area rivers during heavy rains, she said the firm will examine how to best accomplish those goals downtown.
That will include looking at installing new sewers in areas plus the installation of new green measures, such as green roofs, rain gardens and pervious pavement.
In a decade, the city plans to install a massive sewer pipe through the downtown area as part of its $240 million federally mandated plan to reduce sewage overflows. Smrchek said the VS Engineering contract will look at ways to improve the downtown before that investment.
She said it will also look at how to best promote redevelopment in the central city, including whether businesses that build on older sites should be asked to separate sewers.
The engineering work is expected to be done next summer with the full report done by the end of 2010.
In other business, the Board of Stormwater Management approved a $77,400 engineering contract with Bonar Group for work next to Croninger Elementary School. Smrchek said the neighborhood just next to the school often floods because of water rolling down the school’s higher elevation property.
The project will include installing some storm sewers and a rain garden and construction is expected to begin next spring.
