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Anyone who’s stopped by the Bainbridge Marina recently will have noticed the road closed, with workers and backhoes hard at work. This is just one of the last phases of a sewer extension project that’s been close to a year in planning.

City engineer Gabe Menendez spoke to the Post-Searchlight about the project, clarifying that the marina work is aimed at connecting sewer lines across the river to the wastewater treatment plant. For this project, the city has employed K3 Enterprises, which are subcontracted under Hancock and Sons Construction. To make the sewer connection, work crews employed a boring machine to tunnel 40 feet below the river bottom, allowing the main pipe to be pulled through; as of the writing of this article, the crews are now working to install a force main at the marina.

But the sewer isn’t the only system being extended with this new tunnel, as a fiber conduit has also been installed alongside the pipe. This is part of the city’s plans to expand the local fiber optic network.

After the marina connection is completed, Menendez said that would wrap up the majority of the sewer extension project, though there would still be some connections that needed to be made at railroad crossings left. “It’s part of the city’s expansion of the sewer system, and we’re getting it done,” he said. According to Melendez, the entirety of the sewer extension project has cost just over $8 million, and has been close to a year in planning.