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Ohio Turnpike funding pushes forward 2 Canfield water projects
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
The township received state funding for two water projects, one to begin this summer and the other next summer.
They are for storm-sewer work on Pebble Beach Drive and erosion-mitigation work on Mercedes Place. Both projects will receive funds through the Ohio Turnpike Mitigation Project.
The first project to get funding is to work on pipes under Pebble Beach Drive. That work could start in mid- or late July. The project’s total cost is $200,000, with the turnpike mitigation fund paying $170,000. Two engineering firms are working together on the project: Greenleaf Development Services and RJH Consulting Services LLC, both of Warren.
Township Administrator Keith Rogers said the project is “storm-sewer replacement due to the sediment build up and deterioration of the pipe.”
One of the 48-inch pipes in that development has filled three-fourths full of sediment and stone, blocking the free flow of water in the piping, he said.
Work on Mercedes Place, a development near the intersection of U.S. Route 224 and Tippecanoe Road, will begin sometime after July 1, 2016, Rogers said. Mercedes Place features many driveways with multiple condos in each driveway. This project affects 22 units.
Rogers said pipes carrying water off the turnpike run along a drainage ditch that runs parallel to the back end of the condos. The water from the turnpike would “just sit there and spin and erode the embankment,” Rogers explained.
The project is worth $171,859, with turnpike mitigation funding paying $144,359. The township’s cost is mostly for engineering costs for the same engineers from the Pebble Beach project.
After digging into the hill that backs up to the turnpike drainage ditch, crews will put together stones in a wire meshlike basket to build up steps. Those steps, once installed, will be covered back up by dirt to stabilize the hill on the back end of the Mercedes development and protect its drainage pipe.
Ohio Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, once lived in the development and wrote a letter on behalf of the project that was dated March 9. He said he lived there from 2008 to 2011. “You could see [the erosion] with the naked eye where the properties were ending were eroding more and more,” Schiavoni wrote.
He talked about the last condo owner, who was right next to the erosion. “You could see that eventually the land was just going to erode right underneath his condo. It was just a matter of time,” Schiavoni said.