The Chickasha Municipal Authority will spend nearly half a million dollars to replace 152 feet of a sewer line on Colorado Avenue that collapsed beneath 4th Street.
The sanitary sewer main “has failed and has been a continuous operational and maintenance problem,” wrote R. Scott Vaughn, the city’s consulting engineer. “This has been an ongoing problem that is affecting travel on 4th Street,” which is US277 through town.
Average daily traffic volume on 4th Street in 2023 was 10,500 vehicles between Colorado and Kansas avenues, and 14,100 vehicles between Minnesota and Dakota avenues, according to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
“We hope the contractor can mobilize by the end of the mon th and begin the dewatering process,” City Manager Jim Crosby said. It is expected to take at least a week for the groundwater in that area to be pumped out and for the ground to dry, he said.
Then four new manholes will be installed, and a large hole will be bored under 4th Street for installation of the new PVC line inserted inside steel casing and on a new alignment.
The work also will include removal and replacement of 330 square yards of asphalt pavement, 51 linear feet of concrete curb and gutter, 56 square yards of concrete sidewalk, and 135 square yards of 6-inch-thick concrete driveway, records reflect.
“Hopefully the job will be completed within three to four weeks, weather permitting,” after the dewatering process is complete, Crosby indicated.
The CMA awarded a $452,870 contract on the line replacement project to Matthews Trenching Co. of Oklahoma City, the lowest of three bidders.
The city’s 2025-26 budget contained no funding for the sewer line replacement project. However, it will be financed from $2 million that had been set aside in the budget but instead “will not be spent this year” on a 29th Street project, Crosby said.
City Hall plans to convert 29th into a wider-than-normal, “super two-lane” street, Crosby told Southwest Ledger. “We expect that to be a growing area with the US-81 bypass.”
First, though, the route must be surveyed “to see how much easement will be needed,” and then property for the easement must be acquired and public utilities along the route must be relocated – and all of that must be done before construction can begin.
“It’ll be a three-year project, so we decided to take some of that money and use it for the sewer line,” Crosby explained.