Mars prepares to replace water line on Crowe Avenue
MARS — Work is ready to commence on the replacement of a water line that runs along Crowe Avenue.
The borough will make use of grant money received from Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development for the project.
Borough Council member G. Michael Fleming says that work on the water line replacement is scheduled to take place over the next 18 months. According to Fleming, the water line runs from the borough line to the intersection with Pittsburgh Street, a section roughly a third of a mile long.
The borough received $500,000 from Pennsylvania’s Small Water and Sewer Grant in October 2024. However, the amount of the grant only covers part of the estimated expenses for the work needed to complete the project, which comes out to $823,000. The estimate was originally made in October 2023 by KLH Engineers.
Although the grant amount was short of the original project estimates, it is the maximum award amount possible through the Small Water and Sewer Grant, which offers grants for projects between $30,000 and $500,000.
Due to the shortfall in funding, the borough is scaling back the amount of work it will perform on the water line replacement to match the grant amount.
At their meeting on Monday night, Feb. 3, borough council members discussed potential ways to do this with Kevin Creagh and Marisa Brletic, two representatives from KLH Engineers who were present for the meeting.
One idea suggested was to only replace the water line as far south as the Clark Street intersection instead of going all the way down to Pittsburgh Avenue.
“Instead of doing a third of a mile, we could maybe do 60% of that distance,” Fleming said. “That’s probably how it’s going to work out. Then there will be another section that’s going to need done to complete it, but it won’t be part of this initial project.”
