Culverts are shown where water flows under Ledford Road, then is forced to turn quickly at a right angle and flow under Mt. Pleasant Road. SPLOST funds will soon be used to pay for improvements at this site, one of eight such projects coming in 2018.
photo by Mitch Talley
Those corrugated metal pipes carrying rainwater underneath local roads have quietly done their jobs for decades.
Now, though, plagued with rusted-out bottoms and other structural and design problems, these unsung heroes are crying out for help, says Whitfield County Public Works Director DeWayne Hunt.
“30 to 40 years later, those pipes are showing signs of wear, typically through cracked pavement and dips in the road,” Mr. Hunt explained on a recent rainy day trip into rural Whitfield County to take a look at some of those worn-out pipes at the intersection of Ledford Road and Mt.
Pleasant Road.
There, the pipes have been working adequately for decades, but recently the water flowing under Ledford and then forced to turn quickly at a right angle and flow under Mt. Pleasant has swirled and eaten away at the dirt under the asphalt on one side of Ledford, causing a big truck to overturn when it cut the corner too sharply and the back tires fell off the edge.
Fortunately for local motorists, that problem will soon be repaired - one of eight such projects being paid for with funds from the 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
While they’re not the kind of SPLOST projects that usually earn big headlines, they’re still necessary to keep the county’s roads functioning in a safe and efficient manner, according to Mr. Hunt.
In an effort to stretch the remaining penny sales tax funds as far as possible, the county will be taking an innovative approach to replacing the rusted-out and weakened corrugated metal pipes at these eight locations with much stronger reinforced concrete pipes that should last a century or more.
To help with the projects, the commissioners recently approved a service agreement with a Marietta firm, Southeast Engineering Inc., which is in the process of doing the site design and writing the bid specs. Mr. Hunt hopes to bid out the eight projects as a single unit in the next 30 to 60 days, with construction beginning soon after.
Earlier, Mr. Hunt sat down with Southeast Engineering to figure out how much money the county might be able to save if the projects were streamlined. They decided to package the eight projects into one big project, making it more attractive to companies that are already busy with other work thanks to the uptick in the economy.
“We lumped our projects together with hopes that buying in bulk will generate more interest and competition,” Mr. Hunt said. “If we were to bid them out one at a time, it is not cost effective for a contractor to mobilize, so they would typically charge more for a smaller project.”
To make the project even more attractive to bidders, Whitfield County will be seeking so-called hybrid bids, where Public Works will be helping out the contractor with its own crews.
“Culvert contractors are really good with the excavation and placing new pipe,” Mr. Hunt said, “but once on site, there are other pieces of work that are typically contracted out like trucking rock and laying asphalt after they put the pipe in. All those things are part of the project, but a culvert contractor usually has to hire a subcontractor for those items.”
Public Works, he says, has the capability to help out with those peripheral areas of the project, which should result in a lower overall cost and faster completion of the work.
“We’re hiring a culvert guy to come in and do what he’s best at,” Mr. Hunt says, “and our Public Works crews will act as the subcontractor.”
While the county does have the ability to do the project completely in-house, Mr. Hunt points out that it would require dedicating a big portion of the staff for long periods of time and thus forcing the department to neglect other important work like road maintenance, ditch problems, pipe inspections, “all those other things that we have to do on a regular basis.”
With the streamlined process, however, county crews will be able to continue their normal work, but then pop in and out at culvert project sites and help out as needed with items like hauling backfill material, paving, and guard rail installation.
“The contractor will install the pipe and then move on to the next site,” Mr. Hunt says. “While he’s digging out the next pipe, Public Works crews can repair the shoulder, pave and install guard rail at the previous site, and we’ll just both leapfrog from site to site.”
Mr. Hunt also believes the extensive advance engineering work going into each site will pay off, ensuring that the right size of pipe is used and providing in some cases for the construction of concrete headwalls that would funnel the water more efficiently into the pipes that carry it under the roads, eliminating erosion problems like the one at Ledford and Mt. Pleasant.
Construction at the eight sites should be completed in 2018, according to Mr. Hunt, but he worries about the other sites that still need attention throughout the county.
“This is the last of our bridge/culvert funding from the 2015 SPLOST,” he said, “so when we finish these projects, we would have to dip into county general funds to replace a failed bridge or culvert. Typically, a large culvert replacement can run anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 each. We have identified these projects as our most pressing at the time, but we certainly have many more metal culverts all around the county that will need to be replaced over the next several years.”
Culvert projects on the way:
- Old Dixie Highway near State Route 3/South Dalton Bypass
- Bowers Road near Dawnville-Beaverdale Road
- River Road near Riverdale Road
- Ledford Road at Mt. Pleasant Road
- Mt. Olivet Road near Cleveland Highway
- Hopewell Road near Creek Road
- New Hope Church Road near US Express
- Poplar Springs Road at Crow Valley Road
photo by Mitch Talley