MARSHALL — A new approach to repair sewer lines in parts of the city was on the Marshall City Council agenda on Tuesday.

The council approved an engineering proposal for a project to install cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) lining on some city sewer mains.

“We’ve been working as a staff, the engineering and wastewater department, and reviewing a few different pipe segments that are really good candidates for this method of improvement,” said Marshall Public Works Director Jason Anderson.

The CIPP method would put a watertight lining inside deficient sewer lines.

“It’s a trenchless method,” Anderson said at Tuesday’s city council meeting. “We don’t have to dig up the road to make the improvement, and it allows us to address some deficient sewers in areas that we’re not likely to reconstruct in the next 10 to 15 years.”

Anderson said city staff wanted to hire a consultant engineer to help plan the project.

“We think it’s important. We’ve never done one of these types of projects in Marshall before, that I’m aware of,” he said.

They received a proposal of $129,786 for engineering services from engineering firm Bolton & Menk.

Anderson said the city has included $1.76 million in its capital improvement plan for the CIPP project.

“If you’re going to take the effort to mobilize one of these specialized contractors, we wanted to make sure we had a contract that’s large enough to drive down the per-foot cost, and make it advantageous to the city,” he said. “So that’s why it’s in the capital budget as a pretty large project.”

Marshall city staff intended to make sure the project was completed on budget or below budget, a memo in Tuesday’s city council agenda packet said.

The major streets proposed for sewer improvements were Elm Street, Walnut Street and part of East College Drive between North Bruce Street and Sunrise Lane. Other possible candidates included some sewer lines in the neighborhood around Robert Street, Lawrence Street and Viking Drive; parts of a sewer main off Bruce Street; and sewer lines in an alley between Whitney Street and Hill Street.

The proposal had support from members of the council’s Public Improvement and Transportation committee, said council member Craig Schafer.

“We did have a unanimous support for moving forward. We did discuss in pretty good detail what the condition of the lines are,” Schafer said. The committee also discussed the reliability of the CIPP technology, he said. “It’s a good project.”

Council members voted to approve an engineering agreement with Bolton & Menk for a cost not to exceed $129,786.