The water main under Belleville Lake was expected to be completely in place by Christmas, but it wasn’t, and the sub-contractor working on the project has now been moved out and been replaced by the general contractor to complete the job.
This was after a special meeting Monday morning to assess the situation that was making nearby residents very, very unhappy.
The day after Christmas, a North Shore Drive resident who had suffered through water in her basement four times, two broken gas lines, and a strange slurry erupting in her lawn, had had enough.
She dashed off an e-mail to Van Buren Township DPW Director Todd Knepper, who was officially on vacation, stating the situation is completely out of control.
She said whoever graded on the evening of Dec. 26 made her driveway even worse and now she can’t even get into it and she is forced to park three houses away in someone else’s driveway. The grading “screwed up” access to her mailbox and tore out even more of her lawn along with another sprinkler head, she wrote.
The resident announced she would be going to her attorney in the morning and, if necessary, she will stay in a motel and charge the township for the cost. She will also bill the township for the anti-depressants she now has to take.
She said, at the initial meeting last fall, she had explained that she was very sensitive to noise and she reminded Knepper that she was assured the work would be done in three weeks.
“This is a disaster and you know it,” she wrote, adding that other yards on North Shore are ruined, as well.
“… I have lost all faith in the system,” she wrote.
At a recent township board meeting, Knepper had acknowledged all the problems the project had caused for the woman’s family and called the family “saintly” for putting up with it.
The issue came up at that board meeting because it was held after the neighborhood had been without water twice – once announced in advance and once a surprise.
After assessing the most recent situation, Knepper called the special meeting on Monday with the township’s general contractor on the project, Pamar Enterprises.
He reported that Pamar has devised a plan to complete the North Shore water main work in a fashion that likely does not include Hard Rock Drilling, the subcontractor that had been working to bore under the lake.
“The proposal includes the Pamar representatives contacting the impacted homeowners and informing them of the plan to complete the work that will begin next week,” Knepper said.
In the meantime, Hard Rock was told to remove its equipment that is on site to make room for Pamar equipment and Pamar will address the roadway conditions so they remain passable for the residents, Knepper said.
The Hard Rock equipment was removed on Monday.
Neighbors were told by Pamar’s chief engineer that the plan is to dig a trench all the way down to the lake and create a road to get there, going through one of the driveways.
They will dig an opening 25 feet deep, shoring up the sides with steel so it won’t cave in.
Then the project will continue from there and neighbors were warned that “It will not be pleasant.”
According to reports, the drilling under the lake is still several hundred feet from being complete.