By Kathryn Reed

Avoiding Tahoe Keys Boulevard this summer might make for a better driving experience.

Gerhardt & Berry Construction out of Sparks will begin a water line replacement project the first week of May that could take all summer.

The South Tahoe Public Utility District board last week awarded the $3,346,572.70 bid. Nine bids were submitted for what engineers had estimated would be at $4.1 million project.

The state streets water line project in South Lake Tahoe will be finished this year. Photo/LTN

The 2- and 4-inch lines will be replaced with 6-, 8- or 12-inch lines. The side streets get the 6-inch lines and Tahoe Keys Boulevard 12-inch, while Michael Street will have 8-inch. There will be 11,752 feet of pipe installed.

All the affected houses will also get meters.

This is the second phase of the State Street Water Line Project. South Tahoe PUD is making a concerted effort to replace water lines throughout its service area so fire suppression regulations are met. As the South Lake Tahoe-based agency does so, it is putting in the state mandated meters. All STPUD customers are expected to have meters in the next five years to meet the 2025 state deadline.

Sierra Nevada Construction, the second lowest responsive and responsible bidder, had filed a bid protest. No one from the company was at Thursday’s meeting.

The company was challenging the subcontractor being used for the jack and bore work, the pipe bedding supplier and the experience of Gerhardt & Berry. Staff and the board members didn’t believe the challenges were sufficient to not award the bid to Gerhardt & Berry.

Work on Tahoe Keys Boulevard will be Monday-Thursday. One lane will always be open, but that means delays as the traffic is controlled. Formal detours will not be set up, but there are ways to circle around throughout neighborhood streets or use Fifteenth Street off Highway 89.

“We will try to get as much done before Memorial Day as we can,” Shannon Cotulla, STPUD engineering department manager, told Lake Tahoe News, after the April 3 meeting.

Some of the state streets had work done in 2013. This year the remainder of the side streets off both sides of Tahoe Keys Boulevard will get new water lines down to Jeffery Street.

The other project South Tahoe PUD will be doing is installing a force main bypass for sewage. On Tahoe Keys the sanitary force main was installed in the 1960s, so if there were a failure, there is no backup. In other words, there is no place for sewage to go except for spilling or to create a backup into residences. The bypass will create an alternative if there were ever to be a breach in the line.

During the water line replacement STPUD will place door hangers at residences when construction will take place out front or if water will have to be turned off. At times people will not be allowed to park on their street. Access to driveways will always be allowed, but it may require getting the construction crews to move a metal plate over an open trench.