If you start hearing loud blasts of noise this week, relax. It is just the City of Raleigh Public Utilities Department and Park Construction blasting rock to construct a new sewer line along Smith Creek. And you should hear a five-minute warning, which is a series of horn blasts, followed by the one-minute warning, short horn blasts. When the rock is cleared, there will be an all-clear signal, a prolonged horn blast.
This Smith Creek Interceptor Improvement Project, expected to cost to cost $7.9 million by the time it is completed in 2016, will include a new 30-inch sewer line from the Smith Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant off Burlington Mills Road to Lagerfeld Road, a 24-inch line from Lagerfeld Road to Heritage Height and a 16-inch line from Heritage Height to Franklin Street.
All the blasting is necessary because the area rests on a bed of granite at various depths. It made possible the Rolesville granite quarry, now filled by a natural spring, and the still operating Hanson Aggregates quarry on Capital Boulevard just south of Wake Forest.
Because of the sewer project two sections of the Wake Forest Greenway system – the Smith Creek Greenway from Burlington Mills Road to the Neuse River bridge and the Dunn Creek Greenway near Heritage Lake Road – will be closed during parts of the construction.
There are signs announcing the closing posted at the Burlington Mills entrance and at the Smith Creek Soccer Center.
The Smith Creek Greenway is expected to reopen in late spring. Pedestrians and home owners in the vicinity are reminded to stay off the trail and the construction site until the greenway is reopened.
The construction was planned after a study revealed the need for additional capacity in the existing sewer lines, a need that had been anticipated when the Town of Wake Forest merged its water and sewer systems with the City of Raleigh’s in 2005. The costs of the Smith Creek sewer improvements and those planned for the Richland Creek basin were included in the payments the town made to Raleigh, payments have been fully paid off as of this past fall.
As a result of the full payment, town residents saw a reduction in their water and sewer bills beginning in the past December.
