Landslide in Western New York May Cost Taxpayers Millions
Oct 8, 2007 06:02 PM
(Town of Concord, NY, October 8, 2007) - - A state-funded project along the 219 will cost taxpayers millions of additional dollars because of a landslide problem. Investigative Reporter Luke Moretti joins us with a story you'll only see on News 4.
It's a problem the State Department of Transportation calls "very unusual." The agency tells me their soil tests did not reflect a landslide condition, but the fact is, they have a big problem right in the middle of an 86 million dollar road and bridge project.
This is the area in question, Scoby Hill Road in the Town of Concord.
Susan Surdej, NYS Dept. of Transportation, "Approximately 500 meters north and south of Scoby, several hundred meters wide, we have unstable soil, which is actually sliding."
You heard right, an area the size of ten football fields in length is sliding. It's a problem so serious, state geo-technical experts and a landslide consultant from the west coast have been called in.
Susan Surdej, NYS Dept. of Transportation, "They feel that actually an ancient landslide that could be as old as ten thousand years has been activated in this area."
Experts theorize that 150-thousand cubic meters of fill that was put in place may have re-activated the landslide.
Now, all that fill is being unearthed, loaded onto waiting trucks and moved to another location.
Right now it's a huge question mark in terms of how the state is going to handle the situation. In the meantime, work crews continue digging in to all that material that they put in place.
The job of digging down to original ground alone is costing the state over a million dollars. How far down do you have to go until you reach stable soil?
Susan Surdej, NYS Dept. of Transportation, "We'll that's the million dollar question right now. We're anticipating that we're going to have to go below original ground. How far below original ground, we don't know yet."
The slide caught Richard Emerling by surprise. He owns a cabin downhill from the 219 project, along the banks of Cattaraugus Creek.
Richard Emerling, property owner, "We had a lot of problems with silt and mud and water flowing downhill from the construction and pretty much going where ever it wanted to and not where we wanted it to go."
Emerling says the state responded by putting in culverts and silt traps. But the big problem still remains atop of Scoby Hill Road. What do you do about a landslide happening where two new bridges are supposed to be built?
Is there a chance that you can't build here at all?
Susan Surdej, NYS Dept. of Transportation, "No we're not seeing that as a possibility."
The original state DOT plan calls for two bridges over Scoby Hill Road. Will that still happen or will state engineers be forced to redesign that section of the project??
Landsslide in Western NY- Cattaraugus Creek
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