CARIBOU, Maine — Engineers at DuBois and King received the green light to conduct additional survey work on the severely damaged River Road during a Dec. 10 Caribou City Council meeting.
Caribou City Manager Dennis Marker, left, and City Clerk Jayne Farrin, are pictured here on Dec. 10, the council’s final meeting of the year. (Chris Bouchard | Republican)
The firm estimates costs between $6,000 and $8,000 for the work, which will include a topographic survey that supplements their initial findings in October. The company plans to survey approximately 1,000 feet of failed embankment in order to “more accurately describe the existing contours and slope features,” according to a statement from the firm in the council packet.
Shane McDougal of DuBois and King spoke to council about this survey during the meeting, and said their primary concern at the moment is to “get out there before there is much more snow” in order to accurately complete the work.
Mayor David Martin asked if engineers could “check the whole road for possible bad places.” McDougal said that would be part of a larger package, and that the item brought to council only contains an analysis of the failed portions of the road.
“My only concern is that we should be looking for other places where this could happen and fix the drainage there,” the mayor said.
McDougal said that while this would be possible conceptually, problems exist with the current weather conditions, as it would be “hard to see where a culvert or ditch has failed with three feet of snow.”
City Manager Dennis Marker agreed with Martin’s comment. “The big concern is to address the issue we know is there,” he said, adding that the firm can work on a design for repair after the rest of the scope of the project is approved by council.
Councilor Mark Goughan asked if the results of the survey work could be applied to any of the four options for repairing the River Road in the future. The four options, which were brought to council in October, are: to build a retaining wall along the road, to realign the damaged portion of the road 30 feet away from the river, to construct a new road over an existing railbed further away from the river, and to drop the road down by 10 feet.
McDougal said the supplemental work will clearly define the failed portion of the road and that they will cut 12 or more lines down the bank to get as accurate an impression of the road’s condition as possible.
Goughan then made a motion to approve the funding and allow the firm to finalize their work. All councilors, with the exception of outgoing councilor Phil McDonough, approved the motion.
