Middleburgh’s Clauverwie Road could be reopened to traffic by next Friday.
That’s good news for neighbors and anyone else who’s waited 20 minutes at the temporary light at Wells Avenue and Main Street during school traffic.
The light’s a sign that Phase 2 of the $4 million Gorge Creek project, begun in June, is nearing its end—literally; crews have begun moving water lines at the intersection to make room for the box culvert that’s intended to funnel floodwaters to a discharge spot behind the High School and prevent a repeat of the destruction 2011’s Hurricane Irene caused.
In an undated letter to the Middleburgh Village Board, Delaware Engineering’s Biagio Delvillano said they expect Clauverwie to reopen in the “September 19-26 timeframe.”
Monday, DE’s John Brust told Mayor Trish Bergan and trustees that it could be sooner.
“Our best guess now is the end of next week,” he said.
Sympathetic to the inconveniences the detour has meant, Mr. Brust said he’s hesitant to say the project has “gone smoothly and been a great success.”
But really, it has.
“Without the detour, people would have to drive all the way around the Schoharie Valley just to get through Middleburgh,” pointed out Mayor Bergan--something that would have been the case with no detour.
“This is a project we’ve been working on for the last five years,” Mr. Brust said, referencing the struggle to find funding to close a $900,000 shortfall.
“It’s taken a lot of tenacity to stick with it. It’s a pretty complicated project.”
Right now, Mr. Brust said, the box culvert—as large as the village’s meeting room—is installed all the way up to Main Street.
Construction has stopped so water line stops can be installed, work that was to begin Tuesday or Wednesday.
Though Gorge Creek is the most visible project DE’s working on for the village it’s not the only one.
A $200,000 sidewalk replacement project is about halfway done, Mr. Brust said, and the $5.7 million upgrade at the sewer plant is nearing completion.
2011’s Hurricane Irene “really did a number,” on the sewer plant, Mr. Brust said. “There were huge cracks…you could see outside. We were really worried about a catastrophic incident.”
The upgrades should be completed by year’s end.
DE’s fourth big infrastructure project for the village is a list of repairs needed to the Village Hall after vibrations from construction next door caused cracks in both the exterior and interior, separated trusses in the basement, and lead to the building settling, something that’s caused doors and windows to stick.
Mr. Brust said DE hasn’t come up with a construction estimate for the repairs, but it’s a conversation they’ll be having soon with the village’s insurance carrier.