By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
A project with the aim of mitigating stormwater drainage issues along Village Circle in western Glasgow is expected to wrap up this week, weather permitting – a key pair of words over the course of the work that began the second week of May.
Trampus Ford, job superintendent for Pile Contracting, said Friday they had hoped to be finished by that day, but it didn’t quite work out that way. The actual construction of the new drainage system was complete by then, however, with finishing touches being applied to one last catch basin that sits alongside Village Circle being smoothed by hand to create a slope downward to divert water into its desired location.
“Other than that, it’s just restorations [left to do],” he said, noting that some fencing had been removed from behind some homes to provide access to the work area, and they were doing what they could to return grass to the back yards that had been dug up for the installation of pipe and seven catch basins to efficiently carry the water to those pipelines.
Kent Muss, an employee of Pile Contracting, smooths cement sloped to divert water into a catch basin Friday along Village Circle in Glasgow. Melinda J. Overstreet / for Glasgow News 1
A handful of workers were spreading rolls of straw covering over the grass seed that had already been scattered atop the earth that had been disturbed through the process, and Ford said they still had another large area to cover in that same manner.
“If they’ll water it, they’ll have grass pretty quick,” Ford said, noting the mostly dry forecast for the coming days.
Village Circle is off Childress Road, which connects with Old Bowling Green Road (Ky. 1297).
Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works, previously had described the project to Glasgow News 1 and had been keeping the Glasgow Common Council Infrastructure Committee posted on its progress at that panel’s meetings.
He said there was a low-lying ditch at the rear of seven properties that did not drain properly, so water tended to remain there after heavy or frequent rains when the soil got saturated. That made it difficult to mow and otherwise maintain, and it also led to mosquito infestations, too, so the homeowners could not enjoy their backyards at certain times of the year.
“It’s just a mess back there, to put it plain and simple,” McGowan said before the work began. “It stays wet all the time.”
It didn’t help that a stormwater drainage pipe from an adjoining development in the same area as this subdivision, across Childress Drive, directed water from that development to the Village Circle area, Wes Billingsley, Street Division foreman, pointed out, and McGowan concurred.
That drainage goes behind the Village Circle homes, starting at 101 Village Circle, a duplex, continuing behind several single-family homes and winding around onto Village Circle itself beside and between 113 and 115 Village Circle.
Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works, describes a stormwater project that has been underway. The diagonal lines toward the bottom of the image show where stormwater drains from across Childress Drive across to residences along Village Circle, with its path continuing past where his finger is and eventually turning toward the right and emptying onto Village Circle. The water following this path hasn’t drained well, creating multiple problems for the residents with their backyards. Melinda J. Overstreet / for Glasgow News 1
Multifamily properties along Quail Ridge, which sits at a higher elevation than Village Circle, also back up to this low-lying area, and they slope downward to it as to the properties along that section of Village Circle. Between the two slopes, Billingsley said, “it’s just flat,” in the center.
The “good news,” if it could be called that, is that there is enough of a slope to carry the water down away from the homes, so it isn’t flooding them.
So, a plan to remedy the problem, developed by GRW, an engineering, architecture and geospatial firm, was to create seven drop boxes or catch basins – concrete structures with metal grates on top – for the water to fall into, with piping between them to carry the water underground, downhill and away from those homes.
After it was determined this was the next significant stormwater project the city would get done and funding was budgeted and GRW developed its plan, there was a bit of a delay getting one or more of the property owners’ verbal agreements to allow an easement onto their property for the work to get done into written documentation, McGowan had reported to the committee. Billingsley noted that there are permanent easements, though, so the city can access the area for future necessary maintenance. McGowan said they have a 25-foot temporary easement, to allow large, heavy machinery to get in there, but the permanent one is only for 15 feet of width.
Three bids were received from contractors seeking to do the work, and Pile Contracting, with a bid of $147,000 was awarded the project, McGowan said.
Ninety days were allowed for completion of the project.
“Hopefully it’ll dry it up like it should and people will actually be able to use that backyard,” he said.
Several years ago, around the time an ambulance taxing district was established in Barren County to help fund Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Medical Services, the local ambulance service, the city government decided that, as it would no longer be paying directly toward supporting the ambulance service, those General Fund monies could be used toward stormwater projects, and the stormwater fee program was discontinued.
A stormwater master plan created around 2013 identified several projects that were needed, and most have been accomplished since then, but one remains that would likely be the next significant such project. It has to do with how the drainage system disperses from the Castleridge subdivision over to the Bravo Boulevard area, where there is a massive basin, but the water doesn’t go there like it should, McGowan said, and it’s eroding embankments along Bravo, Billingsley said.
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