The good and bad of addressing Emmett Drive
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GRANVILLE - Mayor Patricia Lewis offered some good news and bad news to town council Tuesday and councilors voted to accepted it all.
The good news, a temporary - quicker - fix has been found to get Emmett Drive open this year. The bad news, Granville will have to foot the entire bill.
"Unfortunately, to the public, it appears like we are doing nothing," Lewis said. "That is the farthest thing from the truth."
Lewis said she has been on conference calls and Zoom calls with representatives from West Virginia DEP's Office of Abandoned Mine Land, Potesta and Associates and GeoStabilization International (GSI) to come up with a solution.
Now, they have two: a temporary one that should allow the reopening of the road as early as Thanksgiving and a permanent one that could take as long as two years to complete.
"This is a huge project," Lewis said. "They are encouraging the temporary fix because the project is so big, it could take a couple of years."
It was hoped the DEP would help with the cost, but Lewis said the town would be responsible for the entire cost of the temporary fix. The plan is for GSI to remove loose rocks and debris, which will cost the town $50,000. If crews find that it's necessary to pin the wall, it will be another $35,000.
Council voted unanimously to approve those amounts and get work started. Lewis said the company should be able to start in two to three weeks and anticipates a week to complete, but later said she is not putting a strict timeline to it.
Lewis said a walk-through at the site recently found there are still rocks breaking loose and falling. Some are as large as 4-by-4-foot with one that is 20-by-7-by-6 feet.
"GSI says that has the potential to produce a significant rock fall," Lewis said. "They said don't open Emmett Drive until it is addressed."
Because it's considered an emergency situation, Lewis asked that council give her permission to work with the town attorney on a contract to proceed with GSI and get the project moving.
"It's kind of good news, bad news, but I'm glad we can come up with some kind of solution," she said.
A more permanent solution will be determined once work has begun. The mayor said she anticipates the company that ultimately wins the bid for that job will have to again close Emmett Drive but she hopes it won't be consistently throughout the project.
It is still hoped the DEP will help with funding of the permanent solution. The town center was built on former coal mine property.
Emmett Drive has been closed since Feb. 27, sending all traffic to the Chaplin Road exit of the town center.
GSI specializes in emergency landslide repairs and rockfall mitigation.
Council also approved the purchase of a vehicle and equipment for the Public Works Department, costing $93,293.
This will cover a 6-by-12-foot dump trailer ($8,100), a salt spreader for the town's dump truck ($10,000), a 2026 Ford F-350 ($55,950) and a plow and spreader for that truck ($19,243).
"We were really struggling last year with trucks, so that puts us back in a good place," said Public Works Director Roy Wilson.
He said they try to have four or five plow trucks ready for winter weather. Last year, the department only had three and he worried that one of those would not make it through the coming winter.
Granville Town Council next meets at 7 p.m. Sept. 22 in Town Hall, 1245 Main St., Granville.