Kitemaug Road Repairs Cost $100,000

The Montville Town Council voted unanimously to use $100,000 in state funds to pay for the emergency repairs to Kitemaug Road.

The money is part of a program called LoCIP or "Local Capital Improvement Program." LoCIP money is allotted to every town in the state, said Finance Directr Terry Hart, and distributed for capital improvement projects. Typically, these funds are built into the budget, but, Hart says, the state agreed to release the funds to the town in this case, because it was an emergency.

In mid-August, heavy rain did the final work of dislodging a structure under the road surface, causing a sagging that threatened to collapse. Public Works staffers and engineers said the displacement of the subterranean structure had probably begun more than a year ago, possibly during the flood that hit the area in March of 2010.

A creek below the road dislodged stones and loosened the structure that supports the bridge. When workers began digging, they found extensive problems beneath the road.

Public Works Director Donald Bourdeau explained that when the structure was created, something very much like a stone wall was built along each side of the road. Then, large rocks were laid over the structure to form a box. All this work was done by hand, Bourdeau said, to allow for the particular topography there. The stream comes into the box at a level about 4 feet higher than it leaves.

At some point, rushing water there dislodged stones in one of the walls, and causing one of the bigger rocks to shift.

A new headwall was put in, Bourdeau said, with a new pipe in to a catch basin. The culvert was relined with plastic pipe, and grout was put in around it.

Bourdeau said that when DPW workers excavated the area, they found pegs that used to hold boards that would go in to create a temporary dam and flood the area upstream to make a skating rink.

When Tropical Storm Irene headed toward the area at the end of August, the town put the pedal to the metal on the repairs on Kitemaug Road. People who live in the area had to take a roughly 2-mile detour, and Mayor Joe Jaskiewicz and others were worried that downed trees and power lines, combined with the detour, could make it impossible for emergency vehicles to reach people in the area.

P&H Construction, which was hired to do the repairs, was able to get the work finished before the storm hit.