Bridge project bids to be awarded in August
LEMONT FURNACE – The state Department of Transportation will award the bid for the Evans Manor Bridge replacement project in August, the North Union Township transportation coordinator reported Tuesday. Coordinator Bill Piper told a handful of residents at the township supervisors meeting that PennDOT scheduled the bid award for Aug. 28, work will start in October and the $6 million-$8 million project would be completed in fall 2009.
The project, which is currently in the final design stage, includes a temporary road for use when the bridge, which carries Connellsville Street over railroad tracks, is closed to traffic, Piper said.
Plans include a traffic light at the temporary road that will connect to Stockyard Road and the light could become permanent, he said.
In another transportation project, Piper said traffic signals at three intersections on Route 119 will be moved from guy wires to mast arms in the next couple years.
He said the lights at the entrance to Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus and Mount Braddock Road will be moved in 2009 and the light at the University Technology Park in 2010.
Windy conditions along the highway cause problems for the lights, he said.
Piper also said PennDOT, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the Fayette County Commissioners worked out an agreement to build a lighted park-and-ride lot for the Fayette Coordinated Transportation buses at the former site of the Marsolino Construction Co. offices on Pittsburgh Road.
In unrelated business, a Walter Street resident asked the supervisors to do something about flooding from a stream in their back yard.
Supervisor Robert Tupta said the supervisors obtained a $15,000 grant to buy a 6-foot diameter elliptical pipe to contain the stream and gravel fill. He said township workers will installed the pipe at no additional cost. The work would be done in the spring, he said.
Tupta said the stream runs through several residential properties. Some property owners have installed their own pipes to channel the stream and built bridges over it, but they become clogged and obstruct the stream during heavy rain and cause flooding, Tupta said.
He said in 1991 the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered everyone who owns property along the stream to remove the obstructions, but never enforced the order.
The supervisors also received a complaint from Mike Merkosky of Oliver. He said overwhelming odor of sewage has been coming from the Greater Uniontown Joint Sewage Plant during the recent warm weather spell.
Merkosky said the odor was so bad over the summer that he couldn’t sit outside.
He said a “dripper,” which adds a chemical that reduces the order at the plant, works when it is in use, but it is not used often enough.
He said he attended last month’s sewage authority board meeting, but received no cooperation and he wants the supervisors to take action.
Supervisor Curtis Matthews said all three municipalities, North Union Township, South Union Township and Uniontown, which own the plant, are meeting with the authority on Jan. 16 to discuss installation of a permanent dripper system and how to finance the work.
In other business, Thomas Kumor, chairman of the board of supervisors, said contractors who plow snow from private roads and commercial property should not plow the snow on to streets.
He also advised them to look out for traffic before backing out on to streets.