A month-long project to install a second wastewater pipeline has forced bike riders and pedestrians traveling along the bike trail southeast of Sacramento State to make a detour.-

The bike trail near the Fairbairn Water Treatment Plant and the Alumni Grove has been temporarily closed to all patrons until mid-October.

The detour requires students entering Sac State from the east to take La Riviera Drive and enter the campus from College Town Drive.

The bike path has been closed since Sept. 21 and construction crews have since been working seven days a week to finish the installation of a second pipeline that will carry wastewater from the Arden pumping station, near Howe and Northrop, to the Sac State site.

The 10,400-foot of pipeline will run underneath the river.

The new pipeline is being placed next to the older pipeline for reinforcement purposes.

“It’s for redundancy because we would never shut a pipe down,” said Kevan Samsam, associate engineer.

A German-made machine used to dig the vertical shafts for the underground pipeline enters the ground through an 82-foot pit and works on a remote control device, said Bob Spore, an inspector for HDR an architectural, engineering and consulting firm.

“This is a Rolls Royce of this kind of work; it has all the extra do-hickeys,” Samsam said.

Digging a 10 1??2-foot trench in the nearby levee is an element of the project, because the two pipelines enter the river through the levee, said Bob Spore, inspector for HDR an architectural, engineering and consulting firm.

The new levee will allow less water to seep through, Samsam said.

“Levees are like ice-bergs,” Samsam said. “There is more to building them than just what appears on the surface.”

The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District is responsible for the waste management project, but has contracted the job out Mitchell Engineering and HDR to do the day-to-day building and managing, said Ryan Ming, a site surveyor.

Rafael Ortiz, a computer engineering major who rides his bike to Sac State everyday, said the detour was adding time to his late afternoon ride. The street detour adds six minutes to his commute, Ortiz said. However, Ortiz said he felt worse for the closure’s impact on walkers.

“It’s especially hard for my roommates ?” they don’t have bikes,” Ortiz said.

“I just run around it and that’s it,” said Jose Castorina, a local runner along the levee. Castorina said he doesn’t mind the construction at all.

Pedestrians and bicyclists that use the levee to go to school will now have to pencil in some extra travel time.

Samsam said he feels bad about the inconvenience, but that the river construction near Sac State is a critical part of the project and must be completed before flood season.

The only setback during construction came in the summer when someone vandalized the crane, Spore said. Vandalism can hike up construction insurance and causes unnecessary hurdles, he said.

“The American River is so beautiful and so serene; I understand why people get upset with the construction,” Samsam said. “Rest assured the area will be restored as close to possible.”

The sanitation district has plans to minimize the impact on the environment by involving the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game in the restoration efforts. The plan entails protecting the threatened Valley Elderberry Longhorn Beetle.

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Jessica Wiedling can be reached at [email protected]