Cheshire's Windsor Road Washout Fixed, Road Reopened
CHESHIRE, Mass. — Highway Superintendent Blair Crane said Windsor Road is officially open and issues that caused the washout have been remediated.
"Windsor road reopened [Monday] at 3:30, three weeks from the day it was closed," Crane told the selectmen Tuesday. "Only two weeks of road closure and ... putting it back together I think we addressed all of these issues."
During a storm last month, a portion of the road was washed out and because of the difficult terrain, Crane had to rebuild the road from the bottom up and secure it.
Crane said three issues lead to the collapse of the road: topical water from the storm, drainage under the road and the brook that goes through the area.
He said 25 rocks, some the size of vehicles, placed along the bottom of the washout should keep the brook from eating away at the embankment.
The rocks were tied together with flowable fill to keep everything together.
"It has tied all of those rocks together sealing that entire piece," Crane said. "We put 60 yards of concrete over that and all of those rocks are tied together in one giant piece."
He said clay from the road's original construction was also removed and the highway crew dug down 20 feet and replaced the clay with structural gravel.
"It will help the road and it gave us a chance to reshape the road and deal with any topical water that may come down and do that again," Crane said. "Any water that comes through the hillside will be able to flow freely underneath the road."
He said they also cleaned and extended the culverts and extended the guardrail.
Chairman Robert Ciskowski thanked Crane for his attention to the washout.
"I really wanted to compliment you on the way you handled yourself on behalf of the town," he said. "The way you represented the town was very professional."
In other business, the Selectmen gave Crane permission to designate limited salt-use areas near the reservoir and Sand Mill Road.
Crane said with the last small snow flurry, he noted that the town used a lot of salt and he had concerns about the long-term environmental impacts.
"I realized how much salt we really burn through even as small as that snow event was," he said. "That is material that does not go anywhere. It does not dissolve and if you put a ton of salt down it ends up in the environment and someday we will have to deal with that problem."
He chose to designate those two areas because they feed directly into the town's water supply.
"All of those areas feed into the lake and the lake feeds into the river and the river goes right into our aquifer," he said. "I have no data to say whether or not the sodium levels are high or low, I just have the experience to say that it is probably not a great thing. "
Crane said he plans to purchase signs for the low-salt areas and also said the town could rely more on sand and stone dust in those areas instead of "bathing" everything in salt.
He said beyond the environmental impacts this will also cost the town less money if it is more mindful of salt use. He said salt costs nearly $70 a ton.
Crane did say if it's a matter of safety, the roads will be salted as it has been in the past.
Tags: road closure, road salt, road work,
