Staff Photo by Laura-Chase McGehee/Chattanooga Times Free Press/ Dec 3, 2010 - Bryan Elisberry, left, and Mark Cady dig around for the gas line on Edinburg Drive in Alton Park on Friday. Chattanooga Housing Authority officials expect to complete work on a $1 million sewer replacement in January. The project is one of three public housing improvement projects in progress totaling $5.5 million.Loniel and Shawntell Shackleford can hear the bubbling when sewage backs up into their toilet and bathtub, but Chattanooga Housing Authority officials say help is on the way for the couple and all 340 families in Emma Wheeler Homes.
By mid-January, a $1 million sewer replacement project is expected to be completed, addressing plumbing problems that have plagued the public housing complex for years but worsened in recent months.
Once that work is done, "they should have no problems with toilets," said Naveed Minhas, CHA's vice president of development. "No problems with drainage, no problem with pipes in the ground. It's going to be a good thing to have no problems."
And Emma Wheeler isn't the only CHA complex getting improvements.
A $4 million renovation under way at Mary Walker Towers includes the installation of new cabinets and more energy-efficient windows. The whole interior is being gutted and renovated, said Lonnie Edwards, CHA's project manager.
That work is being paid for with federal stimulus funding and is scheduled to be complete in January.
At Boynton Terrace Apartments, $500,000 is being spent to make 18 units handicapped-accessible. That work is scheduled to be done by the end of March, CHA officials said.
Thirteen apartments in the 250-unit development will be for people in wheelchairs and five other units will accommodate those who have hearing or vision disabilities, Minhas said.
In all, the projects add up to $5.5 million in improvements for the three public housing complexes.
At Emma Wheeler, CHA is replacing the site's 48-year-old broken clay pipes with polyvinyl pipes that last up to 50 years, said Wiatt Wehunt, an engineer with Barge Waggoner Sumner & Cannon Inc.
Clay pipes typically last 20 to 30 years, Wehunt said.
Those at Emma Wheeler have been in the ground so long that sections of them have shifted and cracked so flow through the pipes has been disrupted, Edwards said.
Repeated repairs were costing too much, so housing officials decided to replace the entire system, Edwards said.
On a recent day, an orange excavator clawed through layers of red dirt at the housing development in preparation for the new sewer pipes. Hills of dirt lay piled up in several yards.
The pipes are expected to be laid by January, and by spring when the grass grows again, yards will start looking as if the contractors were never there, Edwards said.
Loniel Shackleford said it was in May when he first noticed that the pipes had burst near his apartment on the corner of Edinburg and Woodland View Circle.
"You could see raw sewage, toilet paper and all, coming up on the street," he said. "I went down there personally and told them about it."
Maintenance crews started work in September and expect to finish Jan. 14.
"There's going to be less back-up, less inconvenience for residents and less maintenance cost to the site," Edwards said.
Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.