Swenson (back to camera) gives update on the project
KINGSTON – Unexpected cost overruns and other expenses have added another $575,000 to the price of Kingston’s notorious Washington Avenue sinkhole. This brings the total expense to just over $8 million since the first hole detoured traffic back in 2011.
City Engineer Ralph Swenson explained the need for additional funding to the city’s Finance and Audit Committee during a long discussion Wednesday night. The committee unanimously approved floating more bonds to cover the extra expense, which is expected to be approved at the May 3 common council session.
The good news is that work fixing the tunnel beneath Washington Avenue is nearly finished, and repaving will take place over the next month, after which automobile traffic resumes. “We could conceivably open it this spring,” Swenson told the committee.
Also included in the new $575,000 bond is $100,000 earmarked for future
consulting to consider alternatives to the Washington Avenue tunnel. A
dozen firms expressed interest in submitting RFPs, returnable later this
month, said Swenson.
“Long term, it’s not in the city’s best interest to maintain that tunnel as it is,” Swanson said. “That’s why I had it on my capital project list, three and a half years ago.”
The bad news is that material got stuck last November inside a sanitary sewer pipe, entombed in cement beneath the tunnel, causing a blockage. Emergency mitigation included renting a 10-inch bypass pump for $12,000 per month, hiring emergency repair crews for $15,000 a day, plus related overtime delays to the main project.
So far, the blockage has failed to be cleared and will require another six-figure sum to remove the blockage with a special directional drill. Meanwhile, about $250,000 out of the $575,000 approved in committee was spent for last winter’s unsuccessful attempt to re-open the deeply buried sewer. The committee is considering having the city purchase, for $100,000, a 10-inch bypass pump, rather than renting one.
