ECHO — When digging up the west end of Echo’s main street for infrastructure repairs, contractors found ground contaminants apparently from old, leaking petroleum reserves for the gas station.

“It’s not uncommon to find contaminants of this sort,” Bollig Inc. Engineering & Environmental’s Resident Project Representative Don Broberg said. “It’s happened to me twice before.”

When that happens, construction teams rely on MPCA codes to direct them to the possible treatments based on the level of contamination.

Even though the contaminant found in Echo does not exceed the level to reuse it, it will not be placed near the new pipes, Broberg said.

“Clean sand from another location will be used for (pipe) bedding,” Broberg said.

Broberg said that one time his construction crew even found a 40-plus year-old metal tank that had been riveted together. It was intact and filled with what was probably a petroleum product.

“I’ve found some pretty interesting items when digging up the streets,” he said, “like a 100-gallon barrel riveted together. It was full. It was old and it was not leaking. From what we could tell, it was full of petroleum product.

With the Echo project, Broberg said about 20-some years ago a tanker was replaced by the local gas station. The contractors found that it had been leaking.

“The odor pretty much said it was gasoline,” Broberg said.

“That one had been there a long time,” Echo City Clerk Sandra Hennen said. “They came and tested it before starting. (Yellow Medicine County Board) approved of the testing.”

The tank had been found at the beginning of the construction period in early August when Bollig had contacted American Engineering and Testing in Marshall, who sent an environmental specialist from Mankato to check it out.

Broberg said that Bollig had worked with American Engineering and Testing before. Density tests are done quite often to make sure everything is solid underground by measuring the specific gravity of the soil, he said.

“I’m guessing the original was probably 30-40 years old and it was probably metal,” Broberg said. New model tanks are often cement and if they aren’t lined well, they leak.

Broberg discussed the scope and sequence of the project, which had been held up some by rain, but was on track once again.

“The substantial completion date for the $2.89 million project is Nov. 15,” he said. “The final completion date is June 30, 2018.”

The project will be repairing, replacing or relining 7,600 feet of water pipes and 11,000 feet of sewer pipes.

Out of the 148 residences and businesses in town serviced with water and sewer, only about 80 were getting the renewal project at this time. The rest had been done in 2003, Hennen said.

Ground contamination is not the only glitch contractors run into, Broberg said. More often they see things like groundwater pockets or undesirable soils, which are routine.

Right now, several crews were coming in piecemeal to work on various aspects of the project.

There were two five-person crews in Echo this week to lay the piping. Broberg said the pipes will be buried 20 feet beneath the surface.

Then two separate crews will come in to reline some of the pipes.

“No less than five persons per crew,” Broberg said, “but not all at the same time.”

Pipes that are being rehabilitated will receive spray-on coating to protect them from rotting on the inside, Broberg said. That will take a crew of about four workers.

Schmidt Construction out of Redwood Falls will come in to pull things back together, leveling and replacing gravel and so forth, Broberg said.

Bollig Inc., Engineering & Environmental is from Willmar and did the designs for the project.

The general contractor is Kuechle Underground from Kimble.

In spite of having the streets torn up over the town’s 125 anniversary over Aug. 18-20, the event was a success.

“The anniversary went very well other than the rain Friday night,” Hennen said, “but it didn’t put a damper on anything.”

Even the one-hour parade was able to weave its way around town without too much trouble. And, it worked well to put the band in the parking lot behind the community center, close to the elevator, Hennen said.

All the streets in Echo, with the exception of North Avenue and Third Avenue, are affected by this project and will remain so until at least the substantial completion date, Nov. 15.