Part of Highland Avenue in Gardiner, Maine, is expected to be torn up before 2023 to replace a 240-foot stretch of failing stormwater drainpipe.
There was heavy rainfall Aug. 31 that damaged a section of Winthrop Street in Hallowell, between Water and Second streets, resulting in a partial road closure.
Central Maine News reported that "the only sign of damage is a sinkhole that has opened up in front of the Highland Avenue United Methodist Church, marked by traffic cones. Fixing it will exhaust the remaining funds the city has set aside for paving in the current budget year."
According to Andrew Carlton, Gardiner city manager, a section of stormwater drainpipe has rotted from the bottom and a contractor will soon be selected to replace it, reported Central Maine News.
“It’s a pretty complicated project, not one we can do in-house,” Carlton said, reported Central Maine News. “It will be a pretty expensive, unbudgeted-for project. What that will mean is that it will eat up our paving budget for the year. It is just unsafe...it’s washing away from underneath.”
Some of the pipe is approximately 9 feet below the roadway. The sides of the trench will be shored up and the sidewalk will be removed and rebuilt during construction, according to Carlton.
Central Maine News reported that Aug. 31 also saw the opening of a sinkhole in a section of parking lot off Arsenal Street in Augusta after stormwater flowed through a corroded drainpipe and washed away sand and gravel, which was filled a week or so later by the Greater Augusta Utility District. A few days later, the utility district filled a sinkhole that opened in a turning lane on Western Avenue, which damaged a brick manhole.
According to Gardiner city officials' estimate, the stormwater pipes on Highland Avenue were last replaced in the late 1980s or early 1990s and were not replaced when Highland Avenue was repaved in 2016 during a municipal partnership initiative with the Maine Department of Transportation.
The state DOT will not take part in the repair, according to Carlton, reported Central Maine News.
There is approximately $100,000 left in the city’s budget for paving and there will be more talks to figure out funding.
Carlton is serving as interim director of the Department of Public Works after Jerry Douglass resigned. There are more reports of sinkholes and other stormwater-related damage in the area.
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