The City of Columbia continues to play the waiting game as it tries to remedy the collapse of Valmeyer Road which resulted in a closure entering its fifth month.

Since Valmeyer Road runs adjacent to Carr Creek, the reconstruction is not simply a matter of organizing materials and labor.

The lengthy delay has been caused in part to the handful of additional agencies involved in the project due to the road’s proximity to a federally recognized stream, but the city has now filed its preliminary applications.

Last Tuesday, Columbia City Administrator Doug Brimm announced the city is “closer to a permanent solution” to this roadway connecting Route 3 to Bluff Road during the Columbia City Council meeting.

The city has tentatively chosen culvert installation as the best option to keep Carr Creek from eroding the roadside, thereby preventing future washouts and road failures.

Columbia City Engineer  Chris Smith elaborated, telling the council he has sent “full hydraulic reports and plans to the regulatory agencies,” and the city is now awaiting review and “any crazy stipulations that (the agencies) may have” in order to finalize the project details. 

Smith estimated a period of six weeks from the end of August as the “worst case” to allow for appropriate review by various agencies.

Brimm also reported the city will be meeting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to “dial in the stream mitigation credits” that are going to be needed to facilitate the proposed culvert solution.

“I won’t go into the bureaucracy that entails,” Brimm said, “but hopefully we’ll have a quantifiable amount that will be tacked on top of the materials, labor and installation price we’re forced to pay as part of that project.”

An Aug. 11 posting on the city’s website summarizes mitigation credits as a function of the Clean Water Act.

“When a construction project impacts a regulated stream, wetland or other waterway, federal law requires that the environmental functions ‘lost’ be replaced,” the post states.  “This is often done through the purchase of stream mitigation credits, which fund restoration or preservation of other streams in the same watershed.”

The goal of mitigation is to ensure there is no “net loss” of an environmental resource.

Once the review is complete and plans finalized, Brimm suggested the bidding and construction phase should move ahead relatively quickly. 

Brimm said the necessary culverts are readily available through only two vendors, and the city has a short list of contractors which will “likely get a targeted approach” for services once final plans are approved and the bid letting begins.

While it is still unclear how much these repairs will ultimately cost, Smith reported in early July the culverts may cost somewhere in the $500,000 range, with other options approaching the $1 million mark.

Those figures did not include the price tag of the mandated stream mitigation credits.

Valmeyer Road has been the subject of several sinking, erosion or flooding incidents in the past two decades.

In 2013, a geo-technical firm was contracted to evaluate the cause of “sinking” on Valmeyer Road brought about by heavy rains. 

At the time, the city made “minor” repairs to keep water from entering the soil beneath the roadway, although no major work was done after the engineering firm released its study findings.