Fine balancing act over pipeline project

Tauranga City Council is bracing itself for a barrage of complaints and grievances once construction of the $106 million Southern Pipeline starts in a year's time.
The reality of how a project of this size would  affect householders and businesses along the  route was spelt out to councillors yesterday.
Explanations were given on a complex range of issues expected to arise along the highly sensitive section of the pipeline between Greerton and the edge of the downtown.
Council has opted for a route that follows  predominantly main roads from Maleme St to Elizabeth St via Oropi Rd, Fraser St, 18th Ave and Devonport Rd.
Engineering and project services manager Chris Olivier said there would be disruption to businesses, regardless of whether the contractor worked during the day or the night. "We will get businesses coming back and saying they have lost business."
 Mr Olivier predicted that nuisance issues would become quite significant for residents when they were unable to access their properties and services were disrupted.
He anticipated that some people would blame damage to their properties on the impact of the trenching and construction.
"People will look at construction and see what they can get out of it."
But council could not survey every property along the route, and the best it could do was to survey on a case-by-case basis.
Mr Olivier said construction was a balancing act, and every constraint that council put on the contractor added to costs.
Constraints to reduce issues included using directional drilling instead of conventional trenching, and night-time construction to minimise the impact on traffic and businesses.
Planning engineer Barry Somers left councillors in no doubt that keeping one group happy would often lead to council getting it in the neck from another.
What was good for commuters could be bad for business and what was good for shopping centres, for example night-time construction, could lead to sleepless nights for neighbouring residents.
He said the balancing act extended to maximising construction during school holidays and not clashing with retail trading peaks. "There will be hard calls to make."
And while directional drilling going up Devonport Rd to Elizabeth St might be welcomed by downtown businesses and residents, it was double the cost of trenching.
Drilling also needed long-term "stringing" areas where sections of pipeline were welded together into long strings above ground,  before being inserted into the drilled tunnel.
Up to five crews could be employed on the project that was budgeted to last four years. Two gangs could construct the pipeline, one starting at Maleme St and the other at the intersection of 18th Ave and Devonport Rd. Separate crews might be used for filling in trenches and road repairs.
Some intersection upgrades, with temporary traffic lights, may be needed along Cameron Rd to cope with the increased volume of traffic expected to avoid the disruptions along Fraser St and Devonport Rd. Cr Greg Brownless said he wished for a return of the days when residents and business were prepared to put up with inconvenience and disruption for the common good.
"The sheer cost of this will get even worse because of the seeming unwillingness of people to accept that their lives will be a little bit inconvenienced."
Engineers said it was hard to be specific about how long individual householders and businesses would be inconvenienced, saying it partly depended on depths and ground conditions.
If water pumps were running all the time, it could be a maximum of two weeks at any one location, or up to two months for directional drilling.
But disruptions were expected to last a day or two for most people.