Town OKs contract for Platte Clove Road work

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. >> Town Board members have approved a $437,000 contract with Roehrs Construction for culvert repairs along Platte Clove Road.

The contract was authorized during a meeting Wednesday, with officials noting the project will include lowering heavy equipment 40 feet into a drainage ditch.

“This is going to involve lowering specialty equipment in the bottom of a ravine,” town Highway Superintendent Douglas Myer said. “They’re going to bore a 48-inch hole under the road and, at the same time, they are going to install pipes.”

Roehrs Construction, of Clintondale, was the lowest of four bidders for the work. Other bids were $513,771 from J. Mullen and Sons, of Saugerties; $679,906 from Merritt Construction, of Saugerties; and $795,000 from Kingston Equipment Rental, of West Hurley.

In the bid specification, the project will include installing 106 linear feet of 48-inch-diameter steel culvert “via boring and jacking methodology, precast concrete headwall, precast concrete stairs, excavation, rip rap, backfill, select fill, guide rail, site restoration, and other related work.”

The work is to be done through the state Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery, which estimates the entire project will cost $644,683.

Following the meeting, Myer said the state funding was important because the town budget could not cover the work.

“The old pipes were just corroded so badly they were beginning to collapse,” he said. “They’re corrugated metal ... drainage pipes. This was one of the projects that FEMA denied because a specific hurricane did not create this damage, but it’s been there ever since I took office.”

Other projects in the town being funded through the state Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery include $363,838 to replace docks and the bulkhead at Tina Chorvas Park along the Lower Esopus Creek and $225,000 for repairs to the Mount Marion Dam on the Plattekill Creek to maintain a backup water supply for fire fighting.