Manatee County has kicked off its next big utility project on Anna Maria Island: a new subaqueous water main.
Loxahatchee-based DBE Management began work the week beginning Dec. 1 on a new underwater pipeline beneath the Intracoastal Waterway at the Anna Maria Island Bridge.
Plans for the water main have been in the works since 2023, when the previous pipeline collapsed into Anna Maria Sound after hangers attaching it to the bridge failed.
A temporary water main was installed in its stead, restoring water access to the island, but its position along the west side of the bridge’s sidewalk has kept the walkway closed for more than two years.
The county voted in May to contract with DBE for $4,167,216.74 to replace the temporary pipeline with a permanent subaqueous water main that will run under the bay bottom along the north side of Manatee Avenue.
DBE began work the week of Dec. 1 by staging an area for drilling between the west end of the bridge and the Kingfish Boat Ramp in Holmes Beach.
Jim Shuler, a senior project engineer with Manatee County Public Works, wrote in a Dec. 5 email to The Islander that the contractor will use a horizontal directional drill from the work zone to bore east under Anna Maria Sound.
The machine will clear a tunnel to the other side of the Sound and eventually “pull back the new pipeline through the drilled hole,” according to Shuler.
In the meantime, Shuler wrote that DBE was preparing equipment and materials and would begin drilling by January 2026.
Drilling operations will run 24/7 to prevent the hole from closing or becoming obstructed and will result in continuous noise impacts in the area.
However, he also wrote that those operations are not expected to make much of an impact on traffic on Manatee Avenue.
When the new water main is installed, tested, tied into the water line and functioning, the temporary pipeline will be removed — and that work will impact traffic.
“The removal work is currently scheduled for the summer of 2026 and should last a few weeks,” Shuler wrote.
Shuler added that the water main will be buried outside of the Florida Department of Transportation’s planned footprint for a new, high-level fixed bridge that will be built just south of the current AMI Bridge.
For more information, visit amiproject.io, call 941-306-4660 or email info@amiprojects.io.