Sinkhole adds $8K to field replacement cost
Tigers unlikely to score on Anaya Field this year
Robert Valencia, facilities director for the Taos Municipal Schools district, and interim Superintendent Valerie Trujillo delivered relatively good news last week regarding the reconstruction of the Taos High School football field and track, followed by some not-sogood news.
It was Trujillo’s first school board meeting since she transitioned from her role as assistant superintendent to interim superintendent.
“We probably won’t play a regular season game on our field this year,” Trujillo told the Taos Municipal Schools District board of education during its regular meeting last Wednesday (Sept. 7). “But we are hoping — possibly, if we go that far with our season — that we may even be able to host our first state game. I don’t want to give any promises. But after this, we should have a field that is safe and done correctly.”
But repairing a “sinkhole” that was discovered after the turf was torn up in July will cost the district an additional $8,000, which was tacked on to the ballooning additional cost of the project, the original estimate for which was $1.3 million. Drainage improvements deemed necessary after the turf was torn up had already added to the cost.
Having received a much-anticipated geotechnical report, now the district and the contractors engaged to rebuild the field know what to expect when they start excavating the field subgrade, the earthen foundation of the field.
A week ago, Trujillo told the school board that construction was “scheduled to start either by the end of this week or early next week, but as of press time on Wednesday (Sept. 14), no crews or equipment had arrived at the site.
“Due to unforeseen circumstances that occurred over the weekend with the crew from Hellas [Construction], they were unable to remobilize on Monday,” Trujillo told the Taos News. “The crew is en route to Taos from Arizona and will start work on Thursday. We are having a remobilization meeting with the crew as soon as they get here.”
The geotechnical report reflected a relatively best-case scenario. School officials were relieved to hear that no major excavation of the entire field subgrade would be necessary.
“We saw a portion of the report that about 24 inches would have to be removed, so we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we were looking at 6 inches” prior to the report,” Valencia said. “We had a meeting with Jeff Boyd from Western Technologies, and he informed us and said ‘No, 20 inches would be the worst’ — but you [only] remove as needed.”
Despite reservations expressed by some board members about using COVID-19 relief dollars to rebuild what a grant application referred to as an “outdoor learning” space, the school board voted in June to use $1.1 million of the district’s federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay for a complete field replacement.
“I thought the ARP was for students who were left behind,” board member Cynthia Spray said at the time. The New Mexico Public Education Department ultimately signed off on the district’s use of the Rescue Plan money for the field replacement, which it agreed qualified as an outdoor learning space.
An additional $200,000 was simultaneously slated to come from the district’s share of local gross receipts taxes and school mill levy revenue. Including the newly-discovered sinkhole repair, an additional $453,000 in project costs — so far — brings the total cost to about $1.7 million.
The track reconstruction work will include two track radius monuments in concrete and the installation of approximately 5,403 square yards of black and orange epiQ Tracks Q3000 10 mil impermeable full-pour polyurethane surfacing system material.
According to Trujillo, the field base work includes:
• Removal of existing 6 inches of stone within the 30-foot limits of perimeter curb,
• At settled area, within the 30-foot limits of perimeter curb, removing and replacing a “15-foot by 15-foot by 2-foot depth base under turf areas,” replacing it with granular material per geotechnical report by Western Technologies, Inc.,
• Proof roll subgrade within 30 foot limits of perimeter curb. If pumping areas are identified, contractors will follow the recommendations in the Geotechnical evaluation report by Western Technologies, Inc. to remove 24 inches of existing material, import granular subbase material, grade and compact to proper planarity and density.
The field subgrade work will include “HDPE collector piping,” connected to a drainage outlet connection point, while the turf work will include:
• 30 mil thick impervious liner,
• 1,168 lineal feet of plastic 2 inch by 4 inch EcoNailer,
• A layer of 5.5 inch permeable base stone and half-inch of permeable finish stone within 30-feet limits of curb, with each course laser graded and compacted to proper planarity and density,
• 80,721 square feet of 19mm CUSHDRAIN shock pad,
• 80,721 square feet of matrix helix 46 ounce, 100 percent polyethylene extruded monofilament synthetic turf system material with football lines, soccer lines, and end zone letters, as well as center log markings,
• REALFILL-brand unique silica pea gravel base and ambient ground SBR rubber,
• One tow-behind ground-driven sweeper and groomer machine.