A portion of 900 Road west of Wattles Road caved in as a result of flash flooding last spring. The road goes over four 10-foot-diameter culverts at this location. However, according to county officials, an 8-foot culvert was used to make a patch and the different in culvert sizes caused the washout. In attempting to replace the culverts, one of them floated up during a concrete pour. (Journal file photo)
By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com
MOUND CITY – New Road Operations Director Jesse Walton updated the Linn County Commissioners on road issues on Monday, Nov. 4. Commission Chair Danny McCullough explained that Walton would be supervising all of the county’s road shops.
First up, the news wasn’t good from Walton on the 900 Road bridge repair. He told them that the first set of flowable fill on the project went well last Tuesday. But on the second pour on Thursday, one of the tubes floated up 2 feet, and Walton said that was not acceptable to him.
The plan for installing the tubes was approved by the state, and the county’s engineer approved the plan. The county followed the plan exactly, he said.
The county crews were going to have to lift one of the tubes up to clear out the flowable fill that was under it, put that tube back to ground level and fill that tube back up with a foot of dirt, he explained, adding it’s not going to be cheap to pull that tube.
Walton told the commissioners that the project was going to take a lot longer than anticipated to get the project completed.
“ I personally think he (the engineer) needs to be out there when it is poured,” Walton said. “I’ve worked for engineering firms, and these are things they need to be out there for.”
Walton said he would like to have a discussion with the engineer about putting anchors down in the ground to hold the tube down when the fill is being poured and see what he thinks of that. He was concerned that might make the permit invalid. He said that the county needed to know what would keep the permit valid.
McCullough asked how many yards of concrete have already been used and whether it had to be filled all the way up.
Walton said that the plan was to use about 50 yards and current 35 yards have been poured. He said it only had to be filled 6 feet deep or halfway up the side of the tubes.
Public Works Director Shaun West said that the reason the county had hired an engineer to supervise the project to begin with is because it is a very large and expensive project.
“Jesse and I are going to have to have a detailed discussion with the engineer on this, because this is 180 (degrees) from the plan that we originally were given,” West said. “And it also is not or may not be in conformance with the permit, which is the whole reason we used the engineering firm to permit this and to do the project management to make sure that we didn’t run into these issues.”
McCullough said he thought the firm that the county hire should help because the engineer was out of town. He said that he thought this was sort of an emergency.
Other information that Walton presented to the commissioners was:
• Road crews were working across the county because trees and road signs were down due to the weather.
• Road shops are preparing vehicles for plowing snow and spreading salt.
• A tube was replaced on Ingram Terrace to complete a drainage service project.
• An extension was installed at Lavender Farms on Montgomery Road.
• The leased John Deere tractor was being scheduled for pick up. It has 291.5 hours on it. Johnson asked what amount of time the tractor had left on the lease. He wanted to make sure that the county was using up all the time it was leased for. Walton said he would have to check on that.
• Road crews and Walton were reinspecting tubes that needed to be replaced immediately.
• School bus signs on County Road 1077 near 1600 Road had been installed.
• The county crews had worked on removing cottonwood trees near the intersection of Wattles and 800 roads.
• Walton said that the road crews were removing the gravel and redoing 800 Road because of the washboard there. After stripping off the gravel, the road crew was going to lay shell clay under it, take out the roller, roll it and pack it and then just re-lay the grave back down.
• Discussed putting the magnet bar on the road grader near the landfill because residents are having tires damaged by the nails left on the road by vehicles hauling construction debris to the landfill.
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