It all started with a hole the size of a coffee cup.

Now, up to $75,000 and more than a week later, a downtown stretch of Kentucky Street – one of the city’s main northbound roadways – is likely to remain closed for a few more days until a broken sewer pipe can be repaired.

Construction crews will keep the intersection at Eighth Street closed as they replace the 68-year-old clay pipe.

Dave Wagner, the city’s assistant director of utilities, said problems began when a 10-foot section of the pipe collapsed. The problem, he said, likely was caused by a hole that allowed groundwater and dirt to weaken the clay pipe and erode the soil around it. When the pipe collapsed, the ground above it became unstable.

The first signs of the problems were small. A hole about the size of a coffee cup emerged on the street on Valentine’s Day. That sent up red flags with utility workers.

A construction crew works on the collapsed pipe at Eighth and Kentucky streets. The collapse likely caused a hole that grew from the size of a coffee cup to a 4-foot-high, 4-foot-wide and 6-foot-deep opening.

When they began to investigate, they discovered a hole – 4 feet high, 4 feet wide and 6 feet deep – had developed 25 feet under the street’s surface.

Instead of trying to repair the 10-foot piece of clay pipe, crews are replacing an entire 150-foot section with plastic pipe, and running it on a slightly new alignment that will make it easier to maintain.

City Manager Mike Wildgen estimated the emergency repairs would cost between $50,000 and $75,000. But Wildgen said the hole isn’t a sign of a growing problem.

Instead, he said it was just part of the process of dealing with aging infrastructure. He said the city has two or three collapsed pipes per year, but this one was unique because the pipe was deeper than most. The location of the collapse also was unlucky, he said.

Karl Gehring/Journal-World Graphic

“Usually they are in an alley or a remote location,” Wildgen said. “They aren’t usually in the middle of Kentucky Street.”

The pipe also was unique because it had only one access via a manhole and contained a sharp bend that didn’t allow the city to inspect it with equipment that snakes through the pipes while searching for damage.

Wagner said the city is conducting annual inspections and repairs to prevent future collapses.

In terms of other high-profile street collapses, the latest on Kentucky doesn’t compare to what’s generally regarded as the city’s worst. In summer 1993, a storm sewer collapsed and closed North Second Street and parts of Locust Street in North Lawrence for four months. The city spent more than $400,000 repairing the hole and had to battle high groundwater that kept filling the hole, which grew to 40 feet long, 18 feet wide and 22 feet deep.

“I don’t want to see another hole, or a pump, as long as I live,” then-public works director George Williams said at the time.

Wagner said the Kentucky Street hole isn’t fun, either.

“I haven’t enjoyed it at all,” Wagner said Wednesday afternoon while overseeing construction crews preparing to pour concrete. “We worked here all weekend on it. On one day we started at 7 a.m. and worked until 8:30 p.m.”