15th Street retaining wall to be replaced

Published 6:39 pm Monday, May 15, 2017

Washington’s City Council, during its May 8 meeting, awarded a $42,400 contract to Sawyer’s Marine Construction to replace the retaining wall on the east side of Holloman Street.

The street runs by Glenview Apartments, connecting East 15th Street to Cowell Farm Road near Vidant Beaufort Hospital.

In 2015, the retaining wall on the west side of Holloman Street collapsed into the street and was replaced. The city’s existing budget includes $50,000 to replace the east-side retaining wall. “NCDOT requested the City delay the project until Council made a decision about improving 15th Street. Since Council voted not to improve 15th Street the retaining wall project needs to be built,” reads a memorandum from Frankie Buck, the city’s public-works director, to the mayor and council members.

Sawyer’s Marine Construction submitted the low bid of $42,400 to replace the retaining wall, which is about 265 feet long. Bobby Cahoon Construction submitted a $44,949.30 bid, with John A. Johnston and Son submitting a $60,275.15 bid. Bids were opened April 20.

In other business, the council adopted a resolution to accept a $150,000 grant for an assessment of the city’s stormwater system. The assessment will be performed by Rivers & Associates at a cost of $157,500.

Most of the funds for the assessment come from a grant from the N.C. Department of Environment Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure. The city’s contribution is $7,500 and a $2,250 grant fee, according to a city document. The grant fee can be included as part of the city’s $7,500 contribution, and in-kind service will apply as part of the city’s contribution, according to the document.

This project is one of several included in the city’s capital-improvements plan, which lists $6.6 million in proposed sewer-related projects in the next five fiscal years.

The focus of the assessment is to perform a critical analysis of the city’s gravity-collection sewer lines, pumping stations, force mains, treatment works and create a priority list of projects, among other scopes of work. As part of its work, the consultant would expand the city’s existing five-year sewer capital improvements plan into a 10-year plan, according to city document.

The city’s wastewater system also takes in wastewater from Chocowinity, which has an agreement with the city to treat its sewage.

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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