More bad soil on Phenix City street after costly Whitewater Avenue

A Phenix City business owner thought something wasn’t right after 10th Avenue between 12th and 13th streets was paved. Crews recently returned to rip up the street for the second time in a year.

What he thought has turned into a bigger and more costly concern for city officials. Stephen Smith, the assistant city manager over the Utilities Department, said the city paved the street about a year ago but conducted an investigation after a portion of the street started buckling.

Results of that investigation showed there is bad soil beneath the newly-paved asphalt, the same problem that delayed the opening of Whitewater Avenue until November last year. That project cost $3.2 million to complete, but a chunk of that was fueled by replacing the bad soil.

“It just was some bad soil,” Smith said. “We run into that all the time. Not just us, Columbus runs into it too. You get water infiltration from underground water that gets in them, and they just get to pumping.”

In those situations, Smith said the bad soil has to be removed and good soil filled in the area to make a project last. A resurfaced road, depending on the conditions, weather and traffic, may last eight to 15 years before maintenance is required, according to some estimates.

Smith said the city decided to do additional infrastructure repairs while the crew is replacing bad soil on the two-lane street. The Utilities Department is now replacing an 8-inch water main in the block that has four to five water customers.

The crew is replacing a 50- to 60-year-old, cast-iron pipe with a modern, ductile iron water line. “It was a really old line,” Smith said. “Since we were going to have to dig the road up anyway, we felt like this was an opportunity to go ahead and replace the infrastructure under the road.”

The city had no idea the soil was bad when the paving project was completed. “Once it got to pumping, we realized we had a problem and dug down,” he said. “Anytime we do that when we’re going to be digging anyway, we take a look at the infrastructure in place.”

In order to remove all the poor soil, the crew typically goes down 6 to 8 feet and sometimes farther if needed. “Sometimes, we’ve had instances we had to go a little deeper than that,” Smith said. “Sometimes, you go until you hit good soil. You get all the bad dirt out.”

Smith didn’t have any estimates on the cost to remove the bad soil and resurface the street. Neither Leroy Williams, the Public Works director, nor Angel Moore, the city engineer, returned calls for comment on the poor soil or cost estimates on the project.

If the work goes as scheduled, Smith said the crews should be completed with the pipe installation and replacing the soil by the end of this week. “Once we get the underground work done, we will contact the paving contractor,” Smith said.

The troubled street is only about a half-mile from the Whitewater Avenue area that plagued officials for months. It’s unlikely this will be the last encounter with bad soil beneath the streets of Phenix City.

“It’s something we have to live with,” Smith said. “When we find it, we do our best to fix it. “

If you’ve seen something that needs attention, give me a call.

This story was originally published October 22, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "More bad soil on Phenix City street after costly Whitewater Avenue."