PB Street Department project fixes failing stormwater drainage tunnel

Poplar Bluff Street Department crews recently finished an ambitious road repair project near Hillcrest Park, which, Superintendent Jerry Lawson said, could have become a big problem if not taken care of.

The work centered around the intersection of Relief and Second streets and an underground tunnel beneath the road there, Lawson said.“There’s a stormwater tunnel that runs underground under the softball field at Hillcrest Park, through the intersection,” Lawson explained.

That tunnel under the intersection, with stacked stone walls, Lawson said, was some of the city’s old infrastructure built several decades ago.

Work on the project was expected to take up to two weeks, but instead was completed in only four days.Photo provided

Heavy vehicles on the road above have for years been causing a failure of the tunnel below, Lawson said, and causing a “bad sag” in the road.

“Water was getting under the floor of the tunnel and starting to weaken the walls. Water was getting to places where it wasn’t designed to be and it compromised the integrity of the whole structure” including the road above, Lawson said.

“It was becoming an issue that trash trucks, fire trucks and cement trucks were eventually going to cause it to completely collapse,” he said.

A Poplar Bluff Street Department crewman works on a concrete structure built as part of the recent repairs to the intersection at Relief and Second streets.Photo provided

The repair project, Lawson said, was expected to take about two weeks to complete, but the installation of new metal culverts went smoother than planned, and the intersection was closed for just four days.

“We closed it the morning of the fifth and had it open the morning of the ninth,” said Lawson.

There was a large sewer main, water main and gas main under the tunnel crews were expecting to deal with during the work, but they didn’t have to.

“Everything went well. We were fortunate all of it was beneath the bottom of the tunnel, so we were able to do our job without getting into any of that,” Lawson said.

New concrete wing walls were poured to divert water into the new culverts, and covers for the transitions between concrete and the metal culverts are curing before being set into place. Lawson expects that to be done possibly by late next week.

Currently, the road surface is gravel, which will compact and be covered later.

The final deck, Lawson said, could be a mix of asphalt and concrete and be completed by the end of the month.

“I think what we’ve come up with will be more than adequate to take care of everything,” Lawson said of the problems at the intersection.

While further problems at the intersection have been averted, the city still has many older roads requiring attention, Lawson said.

“The city has a lot of older concrete streets poured in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Concrete is a great product, but it’s starting to get 60-70 years old,” Lawson said. “We’re coming to a time period where a lot of concrete streets are having issues.”

His crews, Lawson explained, have to prioritize each project and are “getting to them as best we can with the resources and limited manpower we have.”