FREEPORT — Town councilors accepted a bid Tuesday to repair a collapsed culvert that has rendered Desert Road impassable since torrential rains on Aug. 8.

"Our goal is to have Desert Road reopened in six weeks," Town Manager Dale Olmstead said.

Repair work done by R.J. Grondin & Sons of Gorham will replace the 50-year-old culvert that had been eyed for replacement in coming years with an open-bottom aluminum culvert with an estimated life-span of 75 years, he said.

Councilors decided against a plastic replacement for the culvert, which would have extended its lifespan by an estimated 25 years and upped the price by $20,000.

Grondin's bid of $160,000 to complete the project bested the town engineer's estimate and the highest bid by about $100,000, Olmstead said. The low bid drags the total price for repairing the closed road down to around $300,000, or about $150,000 less than initial estimates.

The repair costs for Desert Road and other roads damaged in the Aug. 8 rainstorm will come from Freeport's town coffers unless the Federal Emergency Management Agency releases emergency funding in response to a pending request from Freeport as part of Cumberland County.

Still waiting for a response to their request, councilors unanimously voted for the aluminum culvert replacement in a step toward reopening the road that has been closed for almost a month.

In the best-case scenario, the 3,000 vehicles that use the road daily will continue to be detoured for another four weeks, but Olmstead estimated it would likely take six weeks and noted the contract allows Grondin until Oct. 31 to complete the work.

"We've had lots of comments from people," Olmstead said, "but the Desert, Pine and Webster roads neighborhoods have been very understanding."

In other business during their meeting Tuesday, councilors unanimously approved placing a plan to consolidate Freeport, Durham and Pownal school systems on November's ballot. That question, which garnered a split vote from School Committee members, will join a $330,000 proposal to rebuild the Burnett Road bridge as the two local issues on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Olmstead said residents would vote on the Burnett Road bridge proposal because, unlike the Desert Road culvert, townspeople have twice rejected replacing the bridge and because it handles a smaller traffic load of 300 cars per day.

Courtesy TheTimesRecord.com
Rachel_Ganong@TimesRecord.Com
09/04/2008