Repairs to a slumping section of the Sugarbush Access Road wrapped up last week; the total cost to dig up and restore the sinking road is close to $179,000.
It turns out that the slump in the road was caused by a steady stream of water flowing under the road 24/7.
Warren Department of Public Works director Barry Simpson updated town officials on the status of the project at the August 23 meeting.
At an emergency meeting on July 15, town officials approved hiring Dubois Construction to figure out what caused the slump and fix it.
Traffic on the Sugarbush Access Road was reduced to one way through the stretch that has slumped significantly in the past year.
The slump has existed for several years, according to town officials; the highway department has added pavement in previous years in an effort to repair the road. Simpson told town officials that the rapidity at which the road fell this year required it to be addressed immediately.
According to Simpson, the steady stream of water that was flowing “all day long and all night in dry or wet conditions into unstable soils” caused the road to sink.
Dubois engineers dug up the road and remedied the problem, Simpson said.
The town provided trucking and materials from the town pit, Simpson said, and “it gave us an inkling of what it would entail to do a substantial upgrade on all of the areas on that road; that area was substantial.”
Dubois had to complete the emergency slump project before the paving project begins due in part to stormwater permit requirements.
On Town Meeting Day, voters unanimously approved Article 7 to fund the project at a cost of $375,000. The project consists of paving an eight-tenths-of-a-mile section of road starting in the vicinity of Gold Hill Road and ending near Wheeler Brook.
Town officials hired Mark Bannon of Bannon Engineering to complete the engineering of the one-mile paving project.
In addition, select board chair Andy Cunningham said that Gorman Engineering requested to postpone the chip sealing project on East Warren Road until next year; town officials agreed to postpone the project that was contractually required to be completed by Labor Day.
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