[ad_1]
Madison Township administrators had high hopes when site work began in early April on the Bill Stanton Community Park cliff stabilization project.
The effort was aimed not only at solving a critical erosion problem on the north side of the park, but also at transforming a steep cliff and a gentler sloping hill, where visitors could sit and enjoy the picturesque sunsets. on Lake Erie.
But administrator Kenneth Gauntner Jr. said on September 28 that the project, in its current state, fell short of expectations he shared with fellow administrator Max Anderson Jr. and board chairman Peter Wayman.
“At the end of the day, this project isn’t what we thought it would be, and it’s far from it,” Gauntner said at the board meeting.
Gauntner said the soil that was washed away on the western part of the leveled hill left sections of the ground punctured with large crevices.
The outbursts occurred in late July and early August after a series of heavy rains, he said.
However, Gauntner said he believed the washouts could have been avoided if appropriate action had been taken by J Severino Construction, contractor for the cliff stabilization project.
“If Severino had completed the project in mid-June as the contract required, and installed all the carpets (as well as the grass planting), the washes probably would not have taken place,” he said. stated in a follow-up email to The News. Herald. “May and June were dry months with minimal rain, and the grass on the hillside would have had plenty of time to establish itself. “
The mat Gauntner referred to is a biodegradable coating that stabilizes the soil on the hillside while the grass germinates and takes hold.
J Severino Construction, based in Ashtabula, won the contract for the cliff stabilization project by the Lake Development Authority. The authority acts as the administrator of the project, although Stanton Park is owned by the Township of Madison.
The Township of Madison is funding the project with federal funding of up to $ 490,000 which was allocated in 1998 to control erosion only at Stanton Park.
“This money stayed with (Ohio Department of Transportation), not with the township, because the park was purchased with (federal) transportation funds,” Gauntner said in a previous News-Herald article.
In the past five years alone, Stanton Park, located at 5585 Chapel Road, has lost about 40 to 50 feet of land, north to south, due to the erosion that decimated the bluff. The cliff stretches approximately 1,000 linear feet from east to west.
Severino transformed what was once a steep 70-foot-high cliff into a smoother, contoured hill. Other parts of the project that were completed were the installation of underground drains to divert groundwater and the creation of wet and dry beaches on the shore.
The contractor then planted grass and installed part of the carpet on the side of the hill in early August. Township records show that neither Severino nor any of his subcontractors worked on the site from August 12 to September 9, when the company returned to install an anti-erosion fence atop the cliff. An anti-erosion fence is designed to intercept and slow the flow of runoff laden with sediment.
However, by the time Severino set it up, too much damage had been done, Gauntner said.
“This anti-erosion fence should have been installed at the start of the project to prevent heavy rains from creating the washout on the hillside that you see now,” he said.
Although Gauntner is unhappy that the outbursts have wreaked havoc on part of the hill, he said the project was not a total failure.
“I would say 60 percent of the project doesn’t look bad,” he said. The east end looks a lot like we thought. But that remaining 40% in the west is horrible.
The Lake Development Authority had no specific details on the afternoon of September 30 on what action would be taken by J Severino Construction to repair the washouts and prevent the situation from happening again.
“You always have to keep things in perspective,” said Patrick Mohorcic, deputy director of planning and authority development. “The project alleviated a very serious safety issue by leveling the steep cliff over there. However, that said, the result did not live up to our expectations. And we are still working with the project engineers to get the contractor to fulfill their contract.
Mohorcic declined to comment further on the matter, noting that the project “could very well end in litigation.”
Gauntner also said he anticipates unresolved project details may end up being decided in a court case.
“I don’t see this thing being solved any other way,” he said. “And I don’t know where it’s going to end.”
Jim Severino of J Severino Construction defended the quality of his company’s work on the project. To substantiate his claim, Severino shared an August 13 email from a representative of the QCI group. The Bedford-based company served as the project manager for the Stanton Park cliff stabilization effort.
Ed Chrzanowski, Construction Project Engineer and Contract Administrator with QCI, confirmed that “On August 12, 2021, J Severino Construction Inc. completed work on this project in reasonable and close compliance with all construction documents published by the design engineer in post for this project. project.”
Severino said he believed engineering played a major role in the issues that arose during the effort.
“Responsibility for a poorly designed project has been wrongly blamed on our company,” Severino said in a telephone interview on September 30. “We can only do what the plan tells us to do.”
[ad_2]
Source link