Streets, water and sewer lines throughout Lawton are under construction, due in no small measure to the city’s 2015, 2016 and 2019 capital improvements sales-tax programs.
The City of Lawton is replacing 26 miles of water lines with proceeds from the 2.125% capital improvements program sales tax local voters authorized in PROPEL 2019. Another 26 miles of aged water lines are targeted for replacement and are in the design stage, City Hall reported.
“Within three to four years we will have replaced 25% of our water infrastructure,” Mayor Stan Booker said.
Replacement of old water lines will benefit Lawton utility customers, because water line breaks – 850 of them occurred last year – waste literally millions of gallons of treated water.
The city also is replacing more than 36 miles of deteriorated sanitary sewer lines throughout Lawton. Sewer system problems have plagued Lawton for years.
Leaking sewer lines led to a consent order the state Department of Environmental Quality imposed on the City of Lawton that requires 191,000 linear feet of failing sewer lines to be repaired or replaced to reduce infiltration and inflow.
For example, approximately three and onethird miles of municipal sewer lines will be rehabilitated under a $9.24 million cured-in-place pipe lining contract awarded to SAK Construction from O’Fallon, Missouri.
The contract authorizes work on about 17,600 linear feet of sewer lines at 10 locations in Lawton. Those include Cache Road and 40th Street, Sheridan Road between Gore Boulevard and Lee Boulevard, Lee Boulevard between Railroad Street and Interstate 44, and I Avenue from Sixth Street to 17th Street.
Construction began Nov. 13, 2023, and should be finished by the end of this year, city officials told Southwest Ledger.
The CIPP process “is not necessarily cheaper, but it is a much faster installation and involves less interruption to the public,” said Rusty Whisenhunt, the city’s public utilities director. When installed beneath a street, it requires only temporary shutdowns, he said.
Approximately 78,000 linear feet (more than 14 miles) of 15-inch to 48-inch gravity-flow sanitary sewer lines are being replaced or repaired by the CIPP process in various locations throughout Lawton, said Caitlin Gatlin, the city’s communications manager.
The process entails inserting a flexible liner into an existing pipe, inflating it, and exposing the liner to heat in order to harden it. The cured pipe holds its shape against the old sewer main. “It provides structural support for the old main and eliminates water infiltration,” Whisenhunt said.
Construction/Rehabilitation for Phase 3 Sewer Rehabilitation “is to be completed by Jan. 1, 2025,” city staff informed the City Council earlier this year. “To meet this deadline, it is imperative the Public Utilities Department contract out the South Wolf Creek Trunk Expansion #5 Project, as our field workers continue completion on other projects…” That job will focus on approximately 32,000 linear feet of sanitary sewer lines between Southwest 52nd and Southwest 67th streets south of Lee Boulevard; construction on that job is underway. According to Gatlin, the project will entail “total replacement” of an 18-inch line with 36-inch and 42-inch sewer mains.
The contract will be financed from a $30 million Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, Whisenhunt said.
Seventeen projects in Phase 3 of the sewer rehab program that began in 2014 have been completed, and six other projects are under construction, Whisenhunt related. More than 175,000 linear feet (33 miles) of sewer lines were installed during Phase 3, he said.
That $18 million program has been financed from a multiyear capital improvements program, records indicate.
In-house sewer construction crews are currently engaged in South Wolf Creek Trunk Expansion #6, at 82nd Street and Lee Boulevard, and in the Rogers Lane / Turtle Creek area.
Construction also started recently on a sewer improvement project at two locations between 11th Street and Sheridan Road: one near Jefferson Avenue and one near New York Avenue, city officials reported. That job is being financed from a 2021 community development block grant.
And construction is scheduled to start this month on three sub-basins that extend the length of the city between 60th Street and Flower Mound Road, City Hall announced.
Street projects Street improvements in Lawton are being financed with property taxes as well as sales taxes.
Fourteen street improvement projects in all eight wards were authorized in Phase 1 of the 2017 ad valorem street and roads program and were completed, City Engineer Joe Painter reported. Construction is progressing on two residential streets, and six other streets are next in line for construction under the 2017 ad valorem program. Some of the projects are projected for completion this November, and the others for next March.
Design work is complete on seven other streets and one intersection, Painter said.
Two projects are still in design: two miles of 38th Street, between Gore Boulevard and Bishop Road, which is projected to cost $13.9 million for the roadway construction plus $2.5 million for replacement of a water line; and one mile of Sheridan Road, between Lee Boulevard and Bishop Road, which is scheduled for approval of a design contract on June 25.