Contractors for the Texas Department of Transportation have begun work on a project that department spokesman Marc Shepherd said had prompted a lot of telephone calls.

Just about where the U.S. 69 North exits is on eastbound Interstate 10, there's a large crack in the pavement.

Shepherd said the crack formed after the retaining wall beneath the interstate shifted. This, in turn, caused the soil supporting that section of roadway to shift as well.

"It left a void underneath the pavement, causing it to drop down 2 to 3 inches," he said.

In December, the department accepted bids on the $791,166.90 project that involves repairing the retaining wall, leveling the road and the repairing the crack. The work requires a couple of stages and crews now are working on the first stage, Shepherd said.

For the next month, workers from Gibson and Associates will be burying and attaching support beams to the wall that runs parallel to frontage road, near where it intersects with Harrison Avenue. These beams will prevent the wall from slipping any further.

Once the wall is stabilized, the work will move onto the road itself.

The department will begin shutting down U.S. 69 North at night, drilling into the pavement and injecting an expanding polymer into the dirt beneath the roadway. The polymer will expand and level the depressed concrete, allowing crews to permanently repair the crack. Shepherd said this work will be done at night to minimize the interference with traffic and increase safety for the workers.

AMorale@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/Bmt_Amos

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I-10 at U.S. 69 getting road fix

Grand Haven City Council will be looking at upgrades to retaining walls on Poplar Ridge during its meeting on Monday night.

It will be held at City Hall, 519 Washington Ave., beginning at 7:30 p.m.

City Council will consider accepting the low bid and approving a contractor service agreement with Katerberg-VerHage Inc. of Grand Rapids for $60,956 for replacement of the retaining walls on either side of Poplar Ridge.

Funding for the project is coming from a special assessment, wherein the nearby property owners will be responsible for paying for two-thirds of the cost of the project.

The work will have to be completed by or before May 23, or started after Sept. 5. Reasons behind this are due to constraints related to staging areas, execution and access to the construction site.

Once the contract is awarded by City Council, the contractor will submit a joint permit application to the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to perform the work

in the critical dune area. When this permit is received, it will determine when the project can begin.

A separate project, scheduled to begin in the spring, involves extending sanitary sewer into the area of the retaining wall project. The two contractors will be directed to work together on schedules, access and minimizing conflicts that may adversely impact either project.

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Poplar retaining wall on Monday’s council agenda

MT. GRETNA - Borough Council on Monday night approved spending up to $15,000 to replace a failed retaining wall on Lancaster Avenue.

One quote has been obtained for $4,800 for materials and $9,800 for the required excavation, according to Bill Care, public works director.

The law requires two more quotes to be obtained before the project may begin, but council members said they are hopeful the project can get under way before the next meeting.

The borough received a $10,000 grant from the county to assist in funding the project. The remainder of the funds will be taken from the liquid fuels fund.

In other business:

As requested by council, Care reported on the cost of a small chipper that could be used to chip brush. The borough currently picks up brush and hauls it to be burned.

Council members said they believe they should move away from open burning, so last month they asked Care to research the cost of a small chipper. Care said it would cost about $8,800 to buy a small chipper similar to one demonstrated recently in the borough.

Council members held off on a decision, asking Care to put together a list of upcoming projects and their costs and have the list ready to study at next month's meeting.

Council members adopted a hazard mitigation resolution plan. Care noted the adoption of the plan would allow the borough to be eligible for grant funds should a disaster occur. Barney Myer and Ed Kosoff were appointed to serve as members of the Mt. Gretna Authority board. In the absence of a representative of the Cornwall Police Department, council President Charles "Chuck" Allwein presented the January police report. Officers spent 44.5 hours and drove 121 miles on borough business during the month, he said.

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Gretna to replace ailing wall

Story Created: Feb 15, 2012 at 5:11 PM EST

Story Updated: Feb 15, 2012 at 5:51 PM EST

UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - There is progress for people living in an area that was hit not once, but twice by heavy rain last summer.

Homeowners on Brookline Drive in South Utica are finding comfort in construction crews working along the Sauquoit Creek. Last summer, the waters came up so fast from Tropical Storm Irene that the city had to evacuate dozens of residents in that neighborhood.

The storm was so fierce that even the retaining wall started to break away.

"This new wall is going to protect the whole stream bank and protect this road from eroding," said Todd Kogut, a Construction Inspector said Wednesday. "The retaining wall won't prevent the flooding, but the new retaining wall will stabilize the banks so that we wont lose the road. As you can see, the retaining wall is just a few feet from the road."

Construction on Brookline Drive is expected to be complete by next week, roughly six months since Tropical Storm Irene hit the Mohawk Valley back in August.

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Construction expected to be complete next week in retaining wall following Summer floods

EVERETT -- Children from Faith Lutheran Church helped build a retaining wall for a Guatemalan school in danger of sliding down a steep hillside in a remote village.

Although the children of the church didn't travel to the Central American country, their efforts made a real difference there.

Each year the children raise money to donate to organizations. Last year Marco Tulio Maldonado, the Hands for Peacemaking Foundation's director in Guatemala, traveled to Everett and shared some of the needs of village schools with the children of Faith Lutheran Church.

Maldonado makes an annual trip to Everett, which is headquarters of the Hands for Peacemaking Foundation.

The kids met with their leaders, Nancy Bolling and Janie May, to determine which cause to support. This year the Children of Faith raised money to help save the Guatemalan school. Pete Kinch, a former mayor of Everett, is a member of the church and also executive director of the Hands for Peacemaking Foundation. The nonprofit has staff that has worked near the small village of San Pedro Miador for more than 25 years.

The Everett children were so taken by stories about the children of San Pedro Miador that they chose to give their money to help the village, Kinch said.

During Maldonado's visit to Everett this year they presented him a check for $1,349.90 for the school.

The congregation donated generously because the children were enthusiastic about the project.

The school in San Pedro Miador was built on a steep slope. Heavy rain eroded the foundation. Hands for Peacemaking Foundation volunteers from Everett and villagers helped build a retaining wall that helped keep the building from toppling. The project was completed about a month ago.

"The people live 14 hours from the nearest city. Fresh water is a problem for the villagers. Their earnings average from $1.50 to $3.50 (a day) by picking sugar cane or coffee crop," Kinch said. "When the kids learned they could literally save the school, they worked harder."

The donation was one of the largest collected by children at the Everett church. In the past they've raised money to help the Everett Animal Shelter. This year the children are donating their money to the Little Red School House, which helps developmentally disabled children.

Church leaders said the children are proud to see their efforts help mobilize a village to save the school.

Winonna Saari: 425-339-3437; wsaari@heraldnet.com.

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Children from Everett church help raise money to save school in Guatemala

30-03-2010 10:08 This video shows Phoenix Home Services, a contractor for Northern Virginia and Washington DC, explaining how drainage on a retaining wall is done. To see more projects that Phoenix has done, visit http://www.virginiadrainage.com

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Retaining Wall Drainage Explained - Video

14-11-2010 23:29 http://www.landscapingnetwork.com A failing wood retaining wall is replaced by an attractive 3-foot-tall reinforced concrete block wall with a stucco finish. A strip of decorative gravel behind the wall facilitates drainage.

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Retaining Wall Design -- Smooth Stucco - Video

21-07-2010 13:41

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Retaining Wall Footings - Video

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Published: 1/31/2012 - Updated: 1 hour ago

BY DAVID PATCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER

ODOT warns of an I-475 ramp closure. It was unclear late Tuesday why the sign says 120 days but a state official predicted 7 months. THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH Enlarge | Photo Reprints

West Toledoans: Still have your detour routes for the Douglas Road entrance to eastbound I-475 in the backs of your heads, or programmed into your navigation boxes?

Good, because the ramp that was closed for more than half of 2011 will close again, for seven months, starting Feb. 13, the Ohio Department of Transportation has announced.

The shutdown will allow construction of a retaining wall along the ramp and eastbound lanes immediately east of Douglas, similar to walls built on the westbound side. Its timing is a consequence of both the unusually wet weather that beset Toledo during most of 2011, and the unusually warm, snowless conditions in the city for most of this winter.

Originally, the retaining wall was to have been built during the 2011 ramp shutdown, which ran from mid-May until Dec. 2. But while the ramp itself was rebuilt then, the wet weather put contractor E.S. Wagner months behind schedule for wall construction, so that part of the work never started.

ODOT officials said in December that the ramp would close again in late March or early April to build the wall -- "whenever the weather breaks," district construction engineer Dennis Charvat said at the time.

But thanks to favorable construction weather, contractor E.S. Wagner is ready now to move on the work that requires shutting the ramp back down, Mike Gramza, the department's planning and engineering administrator in Bowling Green, said Tuesday.

"They're able to get in there and get working on a noise wall and retaining wall on that side," Mr. Gramza said.

The Douglas entrance is to reopen about Aug. 24 -- weather permitting, of course.

When it began in August, 2010, construction of the $64 million project to widen I-475 between Douglas and I-75 and replace four scattered ramps near Jackman Road and Central Avenue with a single interchange at a new ProMedica Parkway was to wrap up by June, 2013.

But a very wet spring last year quickly set construction back. By September, ODOT had extended the completion deadline to the end of the 2013 construction season, and Mr. Gramza said that more excessive rain in the fall put even that target in doubt.

Mild winter weather is helping now, he said, and ODOT "is working with the contractor to accelerate the schedule where they can."

The Douglas exit from westbound I-475, closed since mid-April, now is expected to reopen in July. It was more severely affected by last year's weather, because in late April part of a slope just east of Sherbrooke Road on the westbound side -- near where the exit diverges from the freeway -- began collapsing after a rainstorm.

The slope was stabilized with temporary steel sheet piling, and now project managers have settled on a redesign for the retaining wall there that will allow that part of the project to resume.

Soil conditions in a small area near Sherbrooke "were much weaker than expected," Mr. Gramza said. That will be counteracted by using heavy piles, sunk into shafts drilled five feet into bedrock, to anchor the retaining wall there, he said.

The northern abutment for the Sherbrooke Road bridge over the freeway, to be rebuilt as part of the project, will be reinforced because of the soil problem, too, Mr. Gramza said.

January was the seventh straight month with wetter than average weather at Toledo Express Airport, according to the National Weather Service.

But January also is typically one of the driest months of the year in Toledo, and with most precipitation falling as snow. Toledo received just 6.7 inches of snow this January, 4.7 inches less than normal, and the 2.42 inches of total precipitation that had fallen by late Tuesday was 0.37 inch higher than normal for the month.

More January precipitation than usual fell as rain because the month was 4.7 degrees warmer than normal -- a 30.2-degree average daily mean temperature, instead of the normal 25.5 degrees.

But neither the warm temperatures nor the low snowfall was extreme enough to make any Top 10 rankings lists. Among recent Januaries, both 2002 (35.2 degrees) and 2006 (36.6 degrees) were significantly warmer.

Tuesday was the warmest day of the month with a high of 58 at Toledo Express -- five degrees shy of the record for the date set in 1989.

A storm approaching the area was expected to usher in cooler air by Wednesday evening, with a chance of snow showers forecast for early Thursday, but National Weather Service forecasters expected warmer-than-normal temperatures to persist through the weekend.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.

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Douglas Rd. 475 on-ramp to close

THE Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) is warning that the practice of erecting retaining walls as a solution to landslides may not be the best option.

Project Manager for the Community Based Landslide Risk Reduction Mitigation Project (CBLRRMP), at ODPEM, Kirk Frankson, pointed out that retaining walls actually make the problem of landslides worse, because in many cases the actual volume of soil and water builds up behind the walls.

CBLRRMP is a low-cost slope mitigation pilot plan to be implemented in four test areas in Jamaica. It is funded by the World Bank at a cost of US$2.375 million.

He explained that when a retaining wall is built, oftentimes it is not properly constructed and so frequently, during heavy rainfall, water builds up resulting in the collapse of the structure.

Underscoring the point, Research Analyst at the ODPEM, Christopher Gayle, explained why retaining walls fail.

“Retaining walls, if not constructed properly, act as a dam or a holding mechanism for (excess) water, which may fail if adequate provision is not made for draining within the retaining walls. So, we’re saying if you’re looking at cost effectiveness, drainage solutions are better than the more expensive retaining [wall] solutions,” he said.

He added that in a lot of cases, the walls are usually thinner than what is required for an “adequate” retaining wall, hence they bulge, slant, flip or break up from the force of the contained water.

Meanwhile, Frankson said that various low-cost strategies are being investigated under the Management of Slope Stabilisation in Communities project (MoSSIC).

These strategies include traditional terracing, benching of slopes, planting of grass and the implementation of drains and gutters.

The first community test case, Harbour Heights, a former Operation PRIDE settlement, is now a regularised community which overlooks Harbour View, where some $50 million is to be spent erecting a network of drains, channels and rainwater harvesting strategies that will act as natural hazard intervention techniques.

The strategies being tested under the MoSSIC were developed by geologists, Professor Malcolm Anderson and Dr Elizabeth Holcombe of the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, and funded by the World Bank.

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ODPEM says retaining walls may not prevent landslides