DPS director: Hale St. culvert work averted disaster

NEWBURYPORT — Residents of the Hale Street area may have been inconvenienced for a couple of days last week when the road was closed to repair a damaged culvert. But the city’s Department of Public Services director said neighbors had no idea how close they came to losing the street and the gas main below.

DPS Director Wayne Amaral said Monday his workers performed an emergency culvert replacement on Hale Street on Aug. 16 and the following day just in the nick of time before a hard-hitting rainstorm swept through the area Friday.

“We probably would have lost the road if we hadn’t done this,” Amaral said. “The water was all over the road, with about 3 inches of rain on top of it by Friday afternoon. So we were about 24 hours ahead of disaster.

“Because we had already lost the earth under the roadway and that water would have just run into the asphalt and collapsed it,” he added. “There’s also a gas main in that crossing, too. So that would have been taken out as well.”

The city found a pothole forming on top of the culvert across Hale Street south of Doe Run Drive about Aug. 5, according to Amaral, who said a sinkhole was also found developing over the 3-inch concrete culvert pipes.

DPS quickly went about engineering and planning to fix the problem, then got to work along with contractor TW Excavating of Newbury and quickly found the road was beginning to be undermined when it was opened up Aug. 16.

“The individual concrete pipes were beginning to separate,” he said. “We removed the pipe and put in a big, long plastic pipe. So it will never happen again.”

Work on the project concluded Thursday afternoon, just hours before the torrential rain began Friday morning.

“We paved it and closed it, and were able to reopen the street around 4 p.m. on Thursday and all heck broke loose by Friday at noon. So that was a lifesaver,” he said.

Amaral said the culvert replacement will cost roughly $40,000, which Finance Director/City Auditor Ethan Manning said would presumably be funded through the city’s streets and sidewalks budget.

“We would need to pay it out of existing funds and likely go to the City Council for a transfer from free cash or other available surplus funds if we end up going over budget,” Manning said.

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at [email protected] or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.

Home delivery and Digital Access customers of The Daily News get deals for restaurants, hotels, attractions and other businesses, locally and across the country.

Listen to Local Pulse live at 9 a.m. on Saturdays or go back and listen to previous shows.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.