DETOUR RETURNS
Washington Avenue traffic hampered again by underground work at site of former sinkhole
Work crews are back at the former sinkhole site on Washington Avenue to outfit an underground sewer pipe with a new liner, and some traffic is being detoured as a result.
City Engineer Ralph Swenson said employees of Arold Construction Co. have begun preparation work at the site, near Linderman Avenue, and that the 200-foot liner is expected to arrive this week.
The liner work should be completed “within the next few weeks,” Swenson said.
The work had reduced Washington Avenue to a single, northbound lane of traffic near the site. Southbound traffic is being detoured off Washington Avenue at Linderman.
The same detour was in place earlier this spring amid underground work by Arold Construction to remove grout from a sewer pipe.
The liner that now has to be replaced was damaged during the
The liner work should be completed “within the next few weeks,” City Engineer Ralph Swenson said.
grouting process amid the repair of the former sinkhole, which opened near Linderman Avenue in the spring 2011 and was the focus of a six-year repair project.
The damage to the liner allowed grout to partly fill the sewer pipe and block the flow in a section of the city’s sanitary sewer system beneath Washington Avenue.
The city had been using a rented pump to bypass the blocked section of the system.
Swenson has said he the city has “sufficient funding in place” to pay for the new liner and its installation. The city so far has borrowed about $2.5 million to pay for the grout removal and related expenses.
The total cost of the sinkhole-related work on Washington Avenue now exceeds $10 million.
During the six-year repair project, Washington Avenue was closed in both directions to all but local traffic from Linderman Avenue to Route 32, a span of five blocks.