The city of Selma is in the planning stages of repairing sewer mains across the city.

At this week’s Selma city council meeting, the city council approved a bid for a closed circuit TV inspection of about 50,000 linear feet of sewer main located throughout the city to determine which sewer mains need replacing and which ones can be repaired with pipe liner.

Ray Hogg, city of Selma engineering consultant, said the pipe liner costs roughly one-third of what it takes to replace the pipe. He’s hopeful mot of the pipes will not need complete replacement.

Either way, Hogg believes it is time to fix the problem.

“One of the outcomes of this project will be to eliminate as much infiltration and inflow as possible,” Hogg said. “Selma is an old city. A lot of the old sewer mains were installed 100 years ago or more.”

Hogg said the project will cost roughly $4.1 million and will be funded by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management’s State Revolving Fund.

The project will aim to repair and replace both sanitary and storm pipes.

In the fall, there was approximately 700 feet of sanitary pipe that needed to be replaced on Broad Street because the pipe kept caving in due to its deteriorated condition.

Hogg said there is a sanitary pipe between L.L. Anderson Avenue and First Avenue that has experienced three cave-ins in the past five years.

A $261,000 grant from Gulf Coast Underground will allow Hogg to use cameras to see what the pipe looks like.

Hogg said being able to insert a camera into the pipe will prevent him from having to dig up the street and disrupt traffic to get to the root of the problem.

“We know that pipe is not in the best condition. We will be able to put a camera in there ideally,” Hogg said.

Hogg said any repairs will be needed more likely in the older, central part of the city. After looking at the pipes, he said the city will have to decide a course of action.

“I’m going look at them and I’m going to do an estimated financial cost,” Hogg said. “The council will have to determine which areas they want to submit in the grant application.”

Hogg said his team is only in the planning stages right now, and the entire process will take about a year to complete.

Hogg believes the whole city will benefit from these repairs, and he’s excited to take a needed step toward improving Selma’s aging infrastructure.

“We were able to identify what we feel like will take care of a majority of the problem in the city,” Hogg said.