ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Work on a busy road in northwest Albuquerque has been backing up traffic for almost a month. It all started with a busted sewer pipe back in February. Now the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority said it should be done within a couple of weeks. “So, it’s just been a really challenging area to get in here and work,” said Rachel Stone Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority.
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That challenging area is on Central Ave. to Atrisco Blvd. as commuters going westbound have noticed major delays during rush hour traffic for almost a month as the two-lane road turns into one. Crews are hard at work to repair what started as a sewer line that burst on February 20.
“Unfortunately, this area has a lot of underground utilities. There’s high-pressure gas and several water lines, so it’s a really sensitive area to work in. When we got in there originally to start to repair the pipe, a water line broke and then the pipe subsequently kept collapsing further up the line,” said Stone.
The water authority said crews are now doing what’s called pipe bursting where they take a new pipe and push it through the old one to replace it covering 300 feet. They hope all lanes of traffic will be cleared up by March 28. “It’s a quicker way to rehabilitate a pipe and hopefully they’ll have that done in a few days. They’ll start backfilling the hole and putting everything back together, so hopefully we’ll be out of here by the end of March,” said Stone.
Work is still being done on the Filberto’s parking area, but the water authority said it’s grateful for people’s patience as the construction goes on. “We do have an aging infrastructure here in Albuquerque. We certainly don’t like these emergency jobs to happen. We like to do planned work and we just want to again thank everybody for their patience while we get through this work,” said Stone.
The new pipe is expected to last roughly 50 years. The water authority said it won’t know the cost of the repair until it’s complete.