LEWISTON – No single sewer customer is to blame for a white, gunky blob clogging a Main Street sewer pipe.

“There are six addresses that feed into that line,” Deputy Public Services Director Kevin Gagne said. “We have churches, offices, businesses and a very popular restaurant and bakery. So we just want to fix the pipe, and get service back to those customers.”

Crews could begin replacing the 170-foot-long sewer pipe between Blake and Bates streets on Main Street on Tuesday. Gagne said the project had come down to two companies – St. Laurent & Son Excavating of Lewiston and Pratt and Sons of Minot. The city should select one contractor by Monday, he said.

“We have some questions about traffic control that we need to get answered, and then we can select,” he said. “They should start moving equipment in by Monday, but you won’t see any excavation beginning until Tuesday.”

Work should be completed by Friday.

The line begins on Main Street between Blake and Bates streets and continues south. Six businesses feed into the line above the blockage: Wolf Eye Associates, the United Baptist Church, Sam’s Italian Foods, Classy Lady Boutique, PEG Associates and Pro-Print.

“There is more than one customer there, and it’s very possible this has more than one source,” Gagne said. “These kinds of things happen in a public sewer. Back-ups happen all the time. We have an aging system and sometimes it collapses and then blockages happen.”

Crews discovered the blockage last week and have tried forcing it out of the pipe using high-pressure water and metal augers. The pipe is made of simple concrete not reinforced with steel, and Gagne said Thursday that the efforts to force the clog out could have encouraged the pipe to collapse.

Public Services Director David Jones on Wednesday described the clog as doughy, but Gagne said Friday it is likely made up of grease, rags and sewage. It could have taken years to accumulate.

“We don’t think there is a person sitting there flushing balls of dough down the toilet,” Gagne said. “The clog we are finding is pretty typical of the kind of clog we find in that kind of a line.”