Thank-you for the communication and for your concern for the neighborhood streets and the neighbors that live along them. We share that concern, and I trust that the following information will alleviate any long-term concerns you may have.
I am the design and construction manager of this challenging project; Pat Bucklein is our construction inspector, You can reach Pat at 503-793-9809 or you can reach me at 503-793-7291, to express concerns or to dialogue about construction related issues.
What you are seeing out there is not unusual for construction of a sewer line that is an average of 10-feet deep on the streets you mentioned, plus laterals to all properties on both sides of the street. The equipment is much larger and the construction takes longer than it would for a much smaller and much shallower gas line. You are correct in noting that the streets were not “the greatest” before construction – we are finding that the majority of these side streets have little or no gravel under the relatively thin layer of asphalt.
We too have noted that the construction equipment is wiping out a lot of the surfacing that remains adjacent to these trenches – which is also due to the fact that they have little gravel under the pavement. But, based on cores taken during design, we were anticipating this as well.
Now the good news – although this condition is a situation that requires a lot of patience from all local residents, it will be for the long-term good of the neighborhood. We have planned from the beginning of the projects design that many of the streets would not hold up and that we would not only pave the trench sections but that would also be needing to completely resurface the majority of the streets from edge to edge. The minimum requirement of “restoring the roadway to original condition” will be far surpassed with the end product.
We can assure you that no paving will be done over mud. As a minimum, our contractor will be removing soft sections of base and replacing with leveling gravel and a leveling course of gravel, before a final lift of pavement is placed over-all. We do have a couple of streets that were constructed with a better structural section when they were initially built, and those will likely survive the construction equipment and receive trench patching as the final product. However, most of the streets will end up having to be reconstructed, to a great degree.
In the interim, the contractor has the responsibility to make these roads “passable” and to try and maintain the gravel surfacing to accommodate the local traffic. The contractor is responsible to maintain the gravel and has been quite responsive when areas of concern are brought to his attention. We could even place a temporary asphalt patch in the trenches, but are trying to keep costs down so that we can allocate more funds toward the expanded final paving efforts, without driving up the final construction costs and the final assessments to all the property owners.
As soon as a few key items synchronize, we will begin the resurfacing of the completed streets with pavement. Those key items would include:
· Adequate lengths of street that have been completed with all mainline and service laterals having been installed.
· Compaction testing of the backfill and air testing of the pipeline all passing
· Favorable weather that will allow for the repaving efforts, including the prep efforts required on the sub-base (not like we are seeing today)
Our full-time inspector, Pat Bucklein, has been in constant contact with members of the neighborhood, as construction moves ahead. He has reported that the individuals he has spoken with are both understanding of the construction challenges and supportive of the project, as a whole.
I trust that this information has answered your concerns and given you an understanding of the goals we share for the final condition of the streets. If you have any additional questions or observations, I would welcome those. We would also extend that invitation to all local residents, in that if any of the citizens in the project area have concerns, we would encourage them to contact us directly so we can address them.
Dewayne Kliewer, PE
Water Environment Services
Design & Construction Project Manager
530-793-7291
