Day 24; Wow, now THAT is a Big Hole!!

Today sure seemed as if there was just work and progress being made everywhere.

The Storm pipes were completed in the 400 block of Kensington, so that crew joined another crew working on installation of services in the 300 block. They are trying to get far enough down the block with residential services so that one of the crews can go back and start progress on the storm system heading south on Kensington.

So, this is where that BIG HOLE came in to play today. Let me first explain the process. In front of each home, is a water line that connects the home to the water main. There is also a water shut off valve that allows the Village to shut off water to individual homes if needed. Each home in the project zone will have that water shut off valve replaced with a new one as they are connected to the new main.

In the 300 block of Kensington today, one of the old water shut off vales was in a path that took it under some very important root structures of a fairly large and substantial tree. In order to save that root structure, the crew conducting the service connections had to create a new path to get connected to the home's water service line. To accomplish this route, a substantial hole into the front lawn of one of the homes was needed. And let me tell you, it was a BIG hole.....I've never seen a residential water connection need such a large trench to get a good connection. Now, it really was not bigger than big holes in the street, but into the front lawn of a home...that was big!!

While still thinking about this aspect of the project, renewal of the grass surfaces that are disturbed will be completed with grass seed. In 2005, we used sod to renew surfaces, but what we found was that sod was not as durable as grass seed would be. In several cases, homeowners did not take ownership of the new sod and it died and caused much re-work. Grass seed allows for a bit less care and really in the long run, becomes a better surface.

Elsewhere in the Village, Water main intallation continued down Kensington into the 200 block south of Oxford. I did not make it down there at the end of the day to see how far they ended up.

Also, the road crew rebuilding Fisk completed that street and they moved over to the 400 block of Kensington and was getting some rock installed there. I also did not get down there at the end of the day to be able to give you a full report of where they ended up.

Once the service connections are far enough down Kensington, the crew working storm sewer installation will go back and pick that up in the interseciton of Kensington, Fisk and Woodland circle. So far, the new storm goes down Fisk from Lakewood, turns and goes north into the 400 block of Kensington where it ends. We are working to begin installation southbound on Kensington, south of the Fisk intersection. They also need to get across Lakewood and install over to the Lake outfall. We need to wait until the DNR issues our permit after May 3rd to do that work.

Here is an update I sent to a resident on the upper bluff construction status...:

We are still in a DNR/State Historical Society imposed delay for the upper bluff and for the MBCC pond project. Also, we are still in a 30 day waiting period for our permit to be issued for the beach storm outfall. That beach outfall will be/should be issued next week.

The consultant we have hired for the burial issues has been authorized by the DNR and Historical Society to do exploratory digs in the upper bluff where needed and we will be taking core samples from the pond site that will analyzed. Once information/data is collected from those exercises, reports will be furnished to the DNR and Historical Society to hopefully convince them that we are OK to construct. My optimistic estimate is that we are probably still 4 weeks away from getting those permits issued to begin work in the upper bluff.