Park Road Sewer Extension Project

Plans and specification have been advertised for bids on the Park Road Sewer Extension Project. The project extends a storm sewer south on Park Road from south of Lincoln Road to just north of Zartman. The project, besides reducing flooding in the area, will also separate to inlets from the sanitary sewer system. These two inlets contribute to the excessive water in the sewers in the Country Club Hills addition.

Bids will be received next Wednesday. Work will likely begin by March 1.

Markland Quary Remediation

IDEM and EPA are aggressively continuing the remediation of the Markland Quarry site. It is anticipated that work will begin to fill in the quarry in February and be completed in early summer. Filling in the pond will be a massive undertaking, requiring 400,000 tons of material to be placed on the site. That's the equivalent of 25,000 truck loads of dirt.
The city is working with IDEM and the EPA to turn this liability into an asset for Kokomo. The quarry will not be completely filled in. It will be left approximately 8 feet deep so that the space can be used to detain stormwater in a rain event. The city plans to separate the storm and sanitary sewers in the area and release the storm sewer into the detention area, then outlet a small pipe to the separate storm sewer. This separation will greatly reduce the combined sewer overflows on the south side of Wildcat Creek between Washington Street and McCann Street.
We expect to begin the first phase of this separation project in mid spring. Phase one will be the construction of a stormwater outfall from Park Avenue and Brandon south to Harrison Street. Other phases will continue once the quarry project is completed.

DETIS Blog is back

After a much too long hiatus, I have determined to restart my posts. I feel that this blog is very much worth continuing. For those that have missed my posts, I apologize. I don't know if upcoming posts will be quite as frequent as they were before, but I will do my best to keep the citizens of Kokomo informed on the important progress of projects coming out of the Engineering Department.

2009 holds a lot in store for the Department of Engineering, Traffic, and Inspection Services. While the local and national economies are struggling, it is more important than ever that our community continues to invest in our infrastructure and enforce our ordinances so we can attract what private development is available, as well as position ourselves to attract business when the economy improves.

Barrett Law Project Schedule

Construction on both the 2007 and 2008 Barrett Law projects are complete. The next step is to send out the notice of assessment to the property owners. Our tentative schedules are as follows:

2007 Barrett Law Project
Board of Works approval and notice of Public Hearing - November 19th
Public Hearing - December 10th

2008 Barrett Law Project
Board of Works approval and notice of Public Hearing - November 26th
Public Hearing - December 17th

If the Board of Works approves the final assessments, payments will be due within 30 days of the approval. Property owners will need to either pay the assessment or decide on a payment schedule.

Project Update

I appologize for the lack of updates. Most of what the department has been working on is either top secret or extremely boring. Here is an update on some of our larger projects.

Resurfacing - All the asphalt has been laid. We still have a few places where pavement markings still need to be completed.

Indian Heights Lift Station Project - The project is waiting on the delivery of the new pumps, which will not be delivered until the end of November. We still expect the project to be substantially complete by the end of the year.

SSR151 Elimination Project - Construction is over 50% complete. We will be crossing Boulevard just west of Park Road next week. Boulevard will be closed for at least 4 days.

2008 Barrett Law Sidewalk Project - All the concrete is placed. We have just a few punch list items to clear up.

2008 CDBG Sidewalk Project - This is new curb and sidewalk on Mulberry and Delphos Streets. The project got a little late start, but the contractor is moving quickly, and the project should be substantially complete by the end of the year.

We are working on a few new projects. Once they are further along, I will make another post on them.

US31 Kokomo Groundbreaking

The official groundbreaking for the US31 Kokomo project was held last Wednesday. Governor Daniels was there to turn the first of millions of shovels of worth of dirt. This first project is the overpass of 200 South (Southway Boulevard) over the corridor.

There have been some recent changes to the project. Some of the letting dates have been changed a bit. The biggest changes are the "value engineering" redesigns of the north and south termini. Both look to save INDOT a lot of money, which will help keep the project on the $345 million budget they are locked into.

If you want to know more about the project, go to the project website. There is plenty to see and do there. You can also view the layout in Google Earth in the city's GIS. The layer is located in the City of Kokomo, Engineering Department folder. It still has the old version of the north and south termini, but should give you a good look at final product.

City Employee Jeff Berry Passes Away

The following is a Kokomo press release:

City employee Jeff Berry passed away Tuesday evening, one week after being injured in a work-related accident. He was 45.

Berry was hired in to the city in March, 2006, and was an electrical technician in the Traffic Department. He was also involved in the Jim “Moose” Carden Kids Fishing Clinic and coached youth baseball at UCT, among other community activities. Prior to his employment with the city, Berry was a longtime employee of Howard County.

“Jeff was a dedicated, hard-working city employee, and was well-known for his volunteer activities,” said Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight. “He was an active member of his church, and was dedicated to working with the youth in our community. We’re all going to miss him, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”