Knox Mayor Reports Pearl Street Paving Has to Wait Until Aging Pipes Are Replaced

Paving on Pearl Street that was originally listed as one of the Community Crossings Grant projects for the City of Knox will have to wait.

Mayor Dennis Estok told city council members last Tuesday that the brick road on Pearl Street that was originally supposed to be paved cannot be included in this year’s grant application due to some older pipes that are underneath the road.

He said the problematic pipes have been prone to breaks in the past and they intend to completely replace the aging stretch of the outdated system in the future. He said some changes to the program required officials to reevaluate the planned project.

He explained “We originally thought we could include that in the Community Crossings Grant because usually, they did let you do some underground work, just so happens they took that out. We can’t do water, we can do storm but we can’t do water.”

Mayor Estok said the cost of unhooking the old pipe, removing it, replacing it and then hooking the new system back up to all the homes will be costly and time-consuming. The Mayor said officials are looking into ways to take care of that major project, but it probably won’t be tackled for another few years.

So rather than paving the road new and potentially having to dig it up to repair or replace the pipe, they decided to scrap the paving project altogether. Street Superintendent Jeff Borg added a few different paving projects to the grant application to take the place of the Pearl Street project.