Clarksburg Bridge Project Bids Over Budget
 Town officials are concerned over the cost of placing an open-bottom culvert on Gates Avenue. The project has quintupled in cost because of the DEP's requirement. |
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Town officials are hoping the third time's a charm for Gates Avenue.
The Select Board on Wednesday night voted to rebid the project after last week's bids came in too high — again.
Town Administrator Carl McKinney said last week's bid came it at $525,000, not significantly lower than the bids received in the first round. A second bid could not be considered because the contractor is not currently on the state-certified list.
"The max we have is $380,000 and I was hoping this would come in at $280,000," he said.
The town has been trying to replace the old culvert — a cast-iron boiler put in place at least a half-century ago — for several years. The initial cost was about $114,000. It's grown by five times that because of a state Department of Environmental Protection policy is that is requiring open-bottom culverts be used in habitat areas, including intermittent streams and wetlands areas.
The concrete culverts have risen in price by 1,000 percent, said McKinney, and are now costing about $250,000 to $260,000. The price issue forced the town to dispense with changing out three culverts on the West Cross Road project because they would have eaten up the bulk of the MassWorks funding for the road's reconstruction.
"On West Cross, near the Buas, we have an 18-inch galvanized culvert ... They want a culvert 9 feet deep and 7 feet wide," he said.
"By removing three open-bottom culverts, we lowered the cost [of West Cross] by $750,000 ... that's a third of our town budget. ... This is not our only problem. We have a lot of bad culverts in town and I'm just praying they keep going."
The town has met with DEP officials and reached out to its legislative representatives in an attempt to change DEP's ruling. McKinney also has sent a letter to Attorney General Maura Healey asking her to investigate the price hike on the culverts and the forced use.
"It is an unfunded mandate and we don't have that kind of money," he said.
The town's position is that Wheeler Brook isn't conducive as a fish habitat. The water is going downhill along and under Houghton Street until it drops into the flood control chutes in North Adams. Once through the culvert, there's a 4-foot drop that fish or any other water creature aren't coming back up through.
The existing culvert has held up for years but the headwalls are deteriorating and its failure would leave no other access for Gates Avenue homeowners.
McKinney said he had looked into military surplus bridges because, after all, temporary steel truss bridges had been used to move tanks over rivers in Europe to defeat the Nazis.
He couldn't find any surplus, but he did find places that sold old truss bridges in parts.
 The half-century old Gates Avenue Bridge is beginning to crumble. |
"We could buy them, sandblast them and paint them," he said. Footings could be put in away from the stream and the steel laid straight across. "It probably could be done fairly quickly.
"I'm looking at as many possible avenues and solutions that I can ... but it seems the only solution to this is more money, and I'm not happy with that at all."
In other business, the board reviewed the end-of-the-year financial report with Town Accountant David Fierro Jr.
Officials were pleased with the outcome, with member Linda Reardon calling it "a great report." The board has 15 days after the beginning of the new fiscal year to make any transfers to balance out accounts. Fierro did not anticipate any problems in that area since they all appeared to be less than $5,000; anything more than that would require a town meeting vote.
• Residents were reminded that they can opt out of the electrical aggregation agreement the town entered last fall. At the time, National Grid's rates had significantly spiked while Hampshire Power was charging 4 cents less a kilowatt/hour.
Since then, National Grid has dropped to 9.2 cents, less than the 12.191 cents/kwh being charged by Hampshire.
Residents can opt out by going to www.colonialpowergroup.com/clarksburg; calling National Grid at 866-485-5858 or Hampshire Power at 877-700-6165. Have a bill handy to provide your account number.
• The board thanked the Clarksburg VFW for donating $554 to the Town Hall Facade Fund. The account now has more than $2,000 with a goal of $3,000.
• The board also thanked Timothy Shea for his 35 years of service to the town on the Planning Board and Board of Health. A letter will be sent to the retiring Shea on behalf of the board.
"It's a tough job and we certainly want to thank Tim for his years of service to the community," said Chairman Jeffrey Levanos.
Tags: bridge work, culvert, road work,
