ORANGE — For the last decade, residents and town officials have watched the walls of the Fall Hill Brook culvert begin to crumble.
If the North Main Street culvert ever went down, drivers would be rerouted to side streets winding through residential areas to reach Orange’s two elementary schools. With at least $4,467,201.20 in state funding secured, Orange residents must vote at the Annual Town Meeting on June 18 to approve $750,000 in municipal spending to reconstruct the culvert and the .4-mile stretch of North Main Street above it.
The state money is already set aside — granted through the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Transportation Improvement Program — but the commonwealth will only pay for contracting and construction. The $750,000 is needed for preliminary engineering.
“They (the state) want to see a commitment. They want to see us say, ‘Yes, we’re following through.’ It’s been 10 years in the making,” said Town Clerk Gabriele Voelker.
According to Voelker, if the warrant article is approved, $659,000 of the $750,000 will go to Stantec Consulting Services, a Northampton-based engineering consultant. The rest will go toward the town’s legal fees, easements and preparatory work.
Voelker hopes to convince the public to vote “yes” on the article, because the town is getting a good deal, she said.
“For our cost of engineering, we’re gaining about $6 million in engineering,” Voelker said. The state is willing to pay more than its $4,467,201.20 estimate to see the project through.
According to MassDOT’s description of the project, it would include more than reconstructing and rerouting the damaged, aging culvert.
“The project consists of roadway reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconstruction of various retaining walls,” the description reads.
The project also includes “construction of ADA-accessible sidewalks and wheelchair ramps, drainage system modifications and improvements; construction of curb and bituminous concrete berm installations; traffic signing; landscaping and streetscape improvements and other incidental work.”
MassDOT hopes to have the engineering plan by February 2019 to begin construction, and aims for a 2023 completion.
According to Selectboard Vice Chairwoman Jane Peirce, the town should vote “yes” and take advantage of the state’s offer to avoid paying much more money in the event of a failure of the structure, which is made of a wall of noticeably loose rocks.
“That’s just such an important piece of road. This is pretty much the most important highway project I can think of around here,” Peirce said. “If the retaining wall goes and/or the culvert goes, we lose North Main Street and we can’t get to the schools,” she added. “It is important we do this work before a catastrophic event that makes us do it in an emergency situation.”
Peirce also said she has seen the project dismissed by other Selectboards and town officials for many years, in favor of other immediate needs.
“We were on the bad list of MassDOT (which was thinking) ‘We’re holding this money and your not doing anything with it,’” Peirce said. “It absolutely fell of the radar and we are trying to make up for that.”