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Rogue drilling advances By MELISSA MARTIN SHADY COVE -- Armadillo Underground drilling crews have completed a pilot hole to lay a sewer pipe beneath the Rogue River. "I was more than pleased Friday to see the pilot hole on the other side," said Jerry L'Estrange, Shady Cove city administrator. Currently, the city's overburdened sewer pipe is stretched across the Highway 62 bridge. Shady Cove is boring beneath the Rogue River as part of a $625,000 rehabilitation of its sewer system, which is too small to handle the city's growing population. Ground water is also entering the sewer system and causing problems. Crews used a computer, compass and horizontal drilling tools to send a drill bit 600 feet across the Rogue River at a speed of 2 feet per minute. The hole is 40 feet below the water. This week, crews are installing casing on the west side of the river, just as they did on the east side, said Lyle Schellenberg, president of Armadillo, based in Salem. The casing is similar to what is used to keep a domestic well from collapsing. The next step will be sending the drill with a reaming head back through the pilot hole to make it large enough to hold the 8-inch sewer pipe. The pipe is scheduled to arrive in Shady Cove on Wednesday and be fused together on the river bank, L'Estrange said. At the end of the week, crews will pull the sewer pipe through in one continuous motion. While the most challenging part of the horizontal drilling job is over, there is still the risk that rock chunks could fall into the pilot hole. If that happens, crews would have to ream the hole more than once to remove the rock, Schellenberg said. The navigator of the project, who works for Inrock Guidance Systems in Houston, has completed his job of guiding the drill bit through a path predetermined by an engineer, L'Estrange said. The high-density polyethylene pipe will carry sewage from homes and businesses in east Shady Cove to the treatment plant about two miles away on the west side of the river. City engineers said this is the shortest, safest and most economical route from the pump station to the treatment plant. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA