Contract to repair Ashmore Estates drainage channel to be considered on Wednesday

Published 5:55 pm Tuesday, February 21, 2017

1. Ashmore drainage channel repair work to be complete at end of 2017

A yearlong drainage problem is on its way to being fixed.

In late November 2015, heavy rains washed a retaining wall into a drainage channel in the Ashmore Estates subdivision, taking portions of three residents’ backyards with it – accounting for roughly 200 feet of damage along the backside of Evansburg Lane.

On Wednesday, the Tyler City Council will consider approving a contractor to replace the failed open-channel drainage structure with a covered box culvert. The project also will replace the failed retaining wall and backfill the yards with soil.

Huntsville-based Solid Bridge Construction LLC was the lowest bidder on the project with a cost of $1.7 million. If approved, it would be the first project the company has done with the city of Tyler.

Construction will take approximately nine months.

The retaining wall likely fell in the channel because of the weight of saturated soil and landscaping leaning against the improperly designed wall.

The project qualifies for FEMA reimbursement, and the federal agency will pay 75 percent of eligible costs.

Kyle Dykes, project engineer with the city, said the numbers still are rough, but FEMA has identified about $1.6 million in eligible costs, for a potential pay out of $1.2 million.

The project currently is estimated to cost a total of $2.1 million, including design fees and the expenses of putting in an emergency drainage structure while those plans were completed.

The project will be paid through the half-cent sales tax fund.

The city has no records of who built the failed retaining wall.

Tyler owns the right of way to the drainage easement, which connects to businesses on the east side of Old Jacksonville, under the roadway through the Ashmore subdivision and eventually through to the Hollytree subdivision.

According to the city, the channel was designed by the Brannon Corp., but those designs did not include a retaining wall on top of it. It wasn’t made for that kind of weight, according to the city. The affected homes sit on the south side of the channel and were built in the early 2000s. The city doesn’t keep residential plans for that long, City Engineer Carter Delleney has said.

The city will fix the retaining wall, but all landscaping and irrigation will be left to the homeowners to repair.

In other business:

• Council will consider appointing a temporary municipal court judge. If approved, it would be the second judge appointed to hear cases until a permanent replacement is found.

• Councilmembers will consider eliminating the pilot holiday trash service, which picked up garbage once a week on holiday weeks. The original residential solid waste trash pickup service could be re-implemented, which picks up twice a week on a modified schedule.

• Council will hear a revenue and expenditure report for the quarter, which ended on Dec. 31.

• A series of minor changes to various ordinances also will be considered. Those include the Tyler City Code, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6 and 15. Most were changed to allow the city manager to designate duties and responsibilities to others.

• A resolution of support for a Tyler Senior Village development also will be considered. The development is proposed to be located at Shiloh Road and Sweetbriar Lane.

The Tyler Morning Telegraph will attend the meeting. For updates as they happen follow @TMTFaith on Twitter.