With Favorable Weather, Whitefish Water Main Project Makes Significant Progress

Favorable weather has allowed a multi-million dollar project to replace a decades-old Whitefish water main to continue beyond its originally scheduled fall stop date.

The Spokane Avenue Water Main Replacement Project began in early September and has led to traffic delays and restrictions as the work progresses. The project isn’t expected to be fully completed until May 2023, after which the Montana Department of Transportation will have to complete an as yet unscheduled paving of the road surface. Craig Workman, the city’s public works director, is hopeful that the MDT paving will take place in June 2023.

Drivers traveling along Spokane Avenue in the area of the project have been limited to two-way, one-lane traffic. Once the fall work wraps up, crews will use asphalt to repair the trench where they’ve been working throughout Phase 1. The road will be open during the winter without the additional traffic control in place right now. Crews will pick their work back up in the spring. Originally, Phase 1 was scheduled to wrap on Oct. 31, with the last couple of weeks dedicated to cleanup. Now, work will continue into November.

 “We’re about two blocks further than I was hoping, or expecting, to be,” Workman said. “The weather that we had in October was just phenomenal. It could have been snowing sideways for the last month, and we had 65 degrees and sun all of October, so it really worked well and allowed the contractor to make more progress than we expected.”

The project has been undertaken by Sandry Construction, which has been tasked with replacing more than 2,500 feet of the six-inch cast iron water main pipe with a new 18-inch PVC water main. In May, the Whitefish City Council approved a nearly $2.8 million construction contract with Sandry for the project. Work has progressed to Spokane Avenue and East Fifth Street. The water main being replaced is around 60 years old. The main has been leaking at its leaded joints, and line breaks along the main have been an annual occurrence, according Workman.

Crews have been connecting homes to the new line as they progress, and five fire hydrants have also been replaced. The new main will improve water distribution throughout town, but people likely won’t notice much of a change aside from a possible slight improvement to water pressure, according to Workman.

 “The 500 block, the block they just finished, was probably the most challenging because it had the most crossings and the most services we needed to reconnect,” Workman said.

While traffic delays and restrictions in the spring will probably be similar to what people have experienced up to this point, Workman said the MDT paving project could lead to traffic delays “that might be a little more intense,” but added that the duration will be much shorter, with the paving expected to take about a week.