Columbia eyeing $16 million sewer project to address spills, accommodate development
.jpg "The lower Saluda River is a state designated scenic waterway known for cold water, trout fishing and Spanish moss.")
Columbia City Council took a step toward a more than $16 million project that would install nearly four miles of new sewer pipe alongside the Lower Saluda River, an effort that should help reduce sewage spills during wet weather and boost capacity for development that may come in the future.
This week Council unanimously voted to amend the budget — adding on $467,000 — for an agreement with Brown and Caldwell for engineering work on the Lower Saluda Relief Sewer project. That boosted the total for the engineering work to just more than $1.6 million.
The move is a preamble to what city officials say will be a roughly $16.5 million project to install new sewer pipe along a 3.9-mile section of the Lower Saluda. According city paperwork, the new infrastructure would start just north of Bush River Road, run through Saluda Shoals Park, and continue south alongside the river, eventually ending at the Saluda River Pump Station, right near Garden Valley Lane. Assistant City Manager Clint Shealy said a section of the new line will be 42-inch pipe, with the remainder being 36-inch pipe.
The construction project will likely come up before City Council in March. The new pipe would run alongside existing city sewer lines, most of which would remain in service, greatly increasing capacity in that four-mile stretch.
“That’s a big project for us to kind of relieve some of the bottlenecks and some of the issues we have seen,” Shealy told The State. “We are adding quite a bit of new capacity with it to be able to handle wet weather events and new development, those sorts of things.”
Major rainfall has been troublesome in Columbia in regard to sewer spills. For instance, as noted in a Congaree Riverkeeper report earlier this year, the city spilled nearly a million gallons of sewage in 2020. It was a setback for the Capital City which, particularly since the historic flood of 2015, had been tightening its wastewater system and tamping down the amount of sewage it spilled. For instance, it spilled about 262,000 gallons in 2019. Still a substantial number, to be sure, but a far cry from the nearly one million gallons in 2020.
Shealy said that very wet weather in January and February contributed to that 2020 total. Indeed, four of the city’s seven biggest spills in 2020 came in the wake of that early February flooding.
The assistant city manager said the Lower Saluda Relief Sewer will help alleviate some of the “hydraulic bottlenecks” that happen during rain events. Shealy said construction could start on the project in about three months.
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin said the project will go a long way with helping Columbia’s infrastructure withstand a serious storm.
“The major challenge, and it is not unique to Columbia, is when you have a wet weather event,” the mayor told The State. “That’s when you see whether or not your infrastructure is prepared for, sometimes, an event that might happen once or twice a year. Some of these investments are designed to deal with these intermittent, but significant, wet weather events.”
The mayor knows sewer projects aren’t sexy, but notes they are critical.
“There’s nothing beautiful about infrastructure or subterranean investments, because most people don’t see them,” he said. “But, I think most people understand the importance of them, and I think that will be a legacy of our administration.”
After three terms, Benjamin is not seeking reelection this year.
