<b>By Libby Cluett</b><br><a href="mailto:lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com">lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com</a>
Crews for subcontractor SHUC Contracting Inc. worked quickly Thursday to connect three city water lines together – one 6 inches in diameter, another 12 inches and the third is a new 16-inch line to run westward to State Highway 337.
According to Public Works Director Bobby Baker, the developer of the new Tarrant Nephrology Associates dialysis clinic is required to install an 8-inch water line. But he said the city saw an opportunity to work with the contractor to increase the size of the pipe and pay the difference between the required 8-inch and the actual 16-inch upgrade.
“The city thinks there will be additional growth to the west and has a long-range plan to have the area west of the Richard’s Signs to Highway 337 eventually fed by a 16-inch water line,” explained Baker.
“We thought this was the ideal place to start,” he said of the southwest corner of S.W. 25th Avenue and U.S. Highway 180, where a 12-inch water main, coming from the hospital, joined the 6-inch line feeding the area west of the hospital.
“We hope for a 50-year lifespan for these new installations we put in,” he added. “And in reality we’ll probably get more of that out of it.”
Crews were working quickly Thursday so that the City of Graford could pump water again. Baker said Graford had been on a restriction to use stored water only “to be sure they wouldn’t be drawing while we were in a vulnerable position.”
