By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Rather than only pipeline valued at roughly $6,700, the Glasgow Water Co. has now agreed to provide all the materials necessary to replace a portion of decades-old clay sanitary sewer line that is on the property where a justice center for Barren County is to be constructed.
More specifically, the line is in the vicinity of the parking area for the future court facility.
At its last regular meeting, the project development board overseeing the creation of the facility postponed voting on a related change order to the ongoing preconstruction work, because some of the board members had concerns and questions related to the sewer-line project and how the cost of it would be covered. Previously, GWC had agreed to provide the pipe, at roughly $6,700, but additional costs totalling $53,800.67 included four manholes, crushed stone, etc. in addition to the labor.
Joe Watson, general manager, and Jeff Reed, chief operating officer, for GWC, were at Wednesday’s regular meeting, to provide further explanation of why the replacement of the portion of line was necessary and offered the additional materials.
“We discussed it internally at the water company, and we are willing to supply the materials for that,” Watson said. “But this definitely needs to be done. The reason it needs to be done is because the existing sewer line is located outside the storm sewer basin over there. It’s located outside existing Ford Drive, so once you relocate Ford Drive and expand on your storm sewer basin, our existing manholes is going to be in the storm basin. In addition to that, the rim elevation of our manhole is below the top of rim elevation of your storm structure, so, as the water backs up in your storm sewer basin, it’s going to back up and go into our sanitary sewer system. That’s the whole reason of why we were asking to relocate this manhole. In addition to that, these existing manholes are brick manholes, so once you relocate this one manhole, I can’t, I have to … that’s what requires you to replace a couple of these existing manholes, because they’re brick manholes. You can’t really bore into them. You can’t raise them. So that’s the reason of why we’re doing it, and we’re willing to supply the materials for this.”
The segment of Ford Drive between West Main Street and West Water Street is being moved several feet westward a bit to accommodate the justice center project.
Circuit Judge John T. Alexander, vice chair of the board, said, to help ensure he was understanding correctly, that essentially, they needed to change one thing, and that necessitated other changes.
“Where our storm drain is, with all that water collecting, would be over a manhole, so that has to be moved,” the judge said, and Watson affirmed.
Reed said the materials – pipe, manholes and stone – were approximately 50 percent of the costs on the previous invoice provided with the change order, and Watson added that the cost of the materials was about $28,000, and they would work with the construction manager to get the manholes ordered right away, and he thought that might take two to three weeks. Reed said they already have the pipe on hand.
District Judge Gabe Pendleton, also a member of the project development board, said he had been delving into some of the details since the last meeting and understood better now how the relocation of the street affected stormwater management.
“I just wanted to make sure what we were doing was what we needed to do, and I appreciate the water company’s willingness to partner – to kind of help everything work out smoothly,” he said. “I’m certainly satisfied.”
Alexander said that since he was the one who was most vocal about having concerns at the prior meeting, he thought he should be the one to make the motion to approve the change order, and he did. Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd, who chairs the board, also expressed gratitude to the water company. With all six members present either in person or via the streaming service Zoom, the vote was unanimously in favor.
The board also unanimously approved a disbursement of $127,508.56, of which $126,527.59 is for Glasgow-based Alliance Corp., the firm handling construction management on the project, and $980.97 is going to Lynn Imaging in Lexington, which has the system through which engineering, construction and certain other types of documents have been shared among the parties involved. The vast majority of the amount going to Alliance in this particular payment, though, is for the preconstruction work being done by Larry Glass Construction, which is contracted directly through Alliance.
Alexander said he is very pleased with the progress of that work.
“It’s really good, after all the, I guess, issues that we’ve had – overcoming inertia and the law that objects at rest tend to remain at rest – that, as soon as we kind of got over that hump, they were down there working,” he said. “You can drive by there tonight. I drove down in there just the other day, just to get a feel for it. I mean they’re down there plugging away.”
With that, he said he was happy to be the one to make the motion to pay them.
“Yes, it is moving. That’s exciting,” Byrd said.
Discussion also took place about a request from South Central Rural Telecommunications Cooperative for a utility easement on the property, where the cooperative plans to install a fiberoptic line parallel to and about 2 feet west of an existing one. Although additional conversations are expected with SCRTC regarding the type of documentation necessary for the easement and the cost of preparing that documentation, the board did unanimously approve allowing the easement.
Brian Estep, speaking on behalf of the design team, had earlier said they are tracking toward having all documents compiled and ready to share with the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts and Alliance by Dec. 18. Tommy Gumm, CEO of Alliance, had said the preconstruction work, which involves earth movement, stormwater management and other site preparation steps, is currently on schedule.
Because the next regular meeting would have fallen on Christmas Day, it has been cancelled, so now the next regular meeting is scheduled for noon Jan. 8 in the circuit courtroom on Floor 2 of the Barren County Courthouse, but primarily via Zoom.
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