Local businesses fear impact on livelihoods
Just as local residents and business owners begin to adjust to the return of summer traffic woes on Route 26, county officials arrived in Millville on Wednesday with word that travel headaches could continue through the next two years, thanks to planned expansion of the Millville Sewer District along the area’s main east-west route.
Special to the Coastal Point • SUBMITTED:
A map representing possibilities of Route 26 sewer expansion.
Sussex County Engineer Mike Izzo and his crew were looking for input from local business owners as to the proposed start of construction along Route 26 from Old Mill Road west to the Bethany Crest community, beginning in September of 2007.
Under that proposal, construction would continue through the fall, winter and spring, to Memorial Day of 2008, then cease until Labor Day, when it would aim toward completion in April of 2009.
“It will be painful,” Izzo promised reluctantly, “but we want to lessen that pain.”
Izzo said he wanted input from the business owners as to how the county could make the sewer expansion the most feasible for work crews, the county and the businesses. He addressed issues such as the proposed construction window, access to individual businesses and proposed detours that would take half of Route 26’s traffic around the construction zone on an ongoing basis.
DelDOT has told county officials, Izzo said, that the agency would not approve any full closure of Route 26, in favor of detours on local roads. Such a closure would have shortened the project timetable to a single fall-to-spring construction season.
Instead, under the nearly two-season-long plan, one lane would remain open on Route 26, with traffic from one direction of travel routed along signed detours by flaggers while the other uses the remaining open lane of Route 26. Izzo said the directional detours would alternate, likely every seven to 10 minutes.
There are several proposed options for detours throughout the project. “Option 1” utilizes Railway Road and Old Mill Road during Phase 1 of the project, while Phase 2 would also include White’s Neck Road to bring traffic to and from a more westerly area of Route 26.
An alternate detour under Option 1 would take traffic down Windmill Road and Central Avenue during Phase 1, while Phase 2 would have detours along Roxana Road (Route 17), Burbage Road and Windmill Road.
“Option 2” for detours around the construction area on Route 26 takes traffic along White’s Neck Road and Old Mill Road during Phase 1, with detours on Roxana Road (Route 17), Burbage Road, Windmill Road and Central Avenue.
Businesses concerned about access, customers
Aside from the impact on traffic for everyone traveling to or through the area for more than half of two years, starting this fall, local business owners are leery of the impact on their business by the loss of customers who will avoid the area during construction, as well as difficulties for themselves and their employees in even reaching their businesses.
“We are assured that the disruption to roads will be minimal, but having lived through the last sewer line expansion in 2000, I recall access to my old office next to Beebe Medical Center being totally blocked,” wrote Dr. Donald Hattier to Izzo in a letter read by his wife, Laura, at Wednesday’s Chamber of Commerce-organized meeting at Millville Town Hall.
“My patients had to park in the Food Lion shopping center and walk a football field’s length to my office,” Hattier continued. “Remember that I am a chiropractor and by definition see bad backs and spines. Many patients decided to wait several weeks ’til the parking lot was open again.”
Izzo assured business owners that the county was being very stringent this time out about ensuring that access would be available at all times, for emergency vehicles and property or business owners — “99.5 percent of the time,” he suggested.
“There are times when it will be difficult, at best,” admitted county engineer Brad Hawkes, who nonetheless assured the business owners that a quick backfilling of excavations and application of a steel plate would ensure quick — if not instantaneous — access whenever needed.
But Izzo’s and Hawkes’ words rang a bit hollow for one resident of nearby Miller’s Creek Park, who said ongoing sewer construction there had blocked from accessing her home just Tuesday night. She was, she said, forced to park at a distance and haul groceries and pets home on foot. She described a “huge hole” that had been left uncovered, preventing access via her car and, she feared, by emergency vehicles, until Wednesday morning.
“That’s a violation of our specifications,” Izzo replied, saying the report was the first he had heard of the problem.
Chamber Executive Director Karen McGrath, who had helped organize Wednesday’s meeting and passed the word to Chamber members, said she wondered whether some businesses should be looking into insurance coverage that would compensate them for the loss of a day or two of business, in case of real access problems.
“I don’t want anyone to get laid off over this,” McGrath said, using the Fat Tuna restaurant as an example of a business that could lose substantial money over a day or two of forced closure.
Izzo said he couldn’t comment on the insurance issue, but estimates of some 25 feet of pipe laid per day in the project timetable mean most businesses should have access interrupted for only a day or two at the most. The full length of a 100-foot commercial lot would generally be completed in a work week, the engineers said.
Izzo noted plans to have full access available to Route 26 on the weekends, too, with potential contract stipulations that would require contractors to spend their Fridays cleaning up the work zone and repairing the pavement with a temporary replacement that could survive at least a weekend’s worth of traffic.
Off-season schedule doesn’t suit everyone
Most of the businesses in the coastal area rely upon summer visitors, but many are also open year-round. And while DelDOT has already proscribed any interference with traffic on Route 26 between Memorial Day and Labor Day, some business owners were concerned that the planned construction window extended too far into the spring and fall, or that it would impact their businesses disproportionately.
“This is not a realistic window,” said Steve Parrill, co-owner of the Fat Tuna, who was concerned about the impact on the fall “shoulder season” and his year-round employees.
“I have about 100 employees in the summer, and about 65 over the winter,” he said. “I stay open in the winter to keep them working. I don’t make any money myself by staying open.”
Donna Lords said she was likewise concerned with the impact on her landscaping and nursery business, which sees its biggest business in April and May, when construction would still be under way.
“I have 25 employees,” Lords said. “My main concern is to make sure they can eat all winter.”
Lords said she wanted the county to consider overnight work on the project, to reduce its impact on daytime operations of local businesses like hers. But Izzo said there was no way they would be able to make that accommodation.
“This is a high-risk job on an ordinary day,” Izzo said of the work in deep trenches and wet conditions. He said there were already concerns about trench collapses and other worksite accidents, even during daylight. Adding to the mix night hours that would likely introduce fatigue and reduced visibility, he said, was a safety risk the county was unwilling to take.
“This is not our first rodeo,” Hawkes put in. “We have not found [night work] to be of a benefit.”
Izzo said there was a shortage of contractors willing to work overnight, and Hawkes noted complaints about the rare circumstances in which the county had approved overnight work — nearby residents reporting sleep-interrupting construction noise from trucks backing up with warning sounds blaring, tailgates slamming and other things that might not even be noticed during the day.
Those who favored a later start on work were also met with counter-arguments. Mike McCarthy, who operates his stone business on Route 26, said he was concerned that full off-season construction timetable could put some people out of business, particularly with concerns over his delivery trucks’ access to his business. A January-to-May timetable would have less impact, he said.
But while Izzo was prepared to delay start of the construction until January, if necessary — as might be the case if permits don’t come in on time for the September start — he was not fully open to constraining a timetable to January to March, for instance.
“This isn’t like road work. It’s deep and it’s wet,” Izzo explained, noting that conditions are better in the fall and late spring, when the ground is drier. Constraining the period further would also extend the time it would take to get the project done.
Impact extends beyond Route 26 businesses
Also heavily involved in Wednesday’s discussion were representatives of the Millville Volunteer Fire Company, which is one of the entities along the section of Route 26 that will be undergoing sewer expansion.
Chief Doug Scott and Public Information Officer Bob Powell were looking for assurances that the fire company’s members and vehicles would have enough access to provide reliable emergency service during the construction.
Izzo and Hawkes emphasized the need for ongoing communication with the fire company, in particular, during the work. They said on-site supervisors would keep in touch with the MVFC on a daily basis, even hourly, to alert the company to when access might be limited and make accommodations for emergency personnel.
“Communication is key,” said Hawkes, adding that the person assigned to be a liaison with the MVFC would likely have some experience with emergency services to help make sure the company’s needs were met. (McGrath said a “working group” of business owners and an e-mail list would keep everyone informed and make sure problems were communicated.)
Also suggested by Izzo was the possibility of pushing some equipment and manpower to the MVFC’s new Clarksville substation. But Scott said that was not likely to prove feasible, as most volunteers respond to the Millville location and room for equipment in Clarksville is limited. Izzo said the county would work with the MVFC to warn if a separate staging area might be needed on a given day, to ensure quick access.
The MVFC officials said they were also concerned about the detours, noting that other detours recently used by the MFVC at some construction areas had themselves been subject to additional detours, sometimes taking the firefighters well out of their way when they were trying to reach a fire.
Izzo said the lack of coordination between work areas was now a thing of the past, with county and state officials having learned that the traffic loads on the area’s roads are just too high to leave anything to chance.
Also on the minds of those at the meeting were the extended impacts on local residents and on employees. They pointed to the need for the county, state and business owners to cooperate in finding a solution that will have the least negative impact on everyone.
“This is going to affect a lot of lives,” said restaurateur Al Casapulla, who noted the impact on his own employees and other local residents.
“This has an impact on our way of life. We need to work together as a community to reduce the impact of the expansion,” McCarthy commented.
To delay or not to delay…
With no one entirely happy about the prospect of business and traffic being disrupted for most of the coming two years, Izzo did mention one final possibility for changing the construction timetable: a delay of work to coordinate with the planned Route 26 improvements that would add a turn lane and closed sewer system to the road between the Assawoman Canal and St. George’s church in unincorporated Clarkesville.
Izzo said state officials had told him in recent weeks that a 2014 start date looked likely for the project, with an apparent green light given for the supporting “local roads” improvements — now called the “Route 26 detour project” — to start in the spring of 2009.
Despite other dates floating around in the rumor mill, Izzo said 2014 was the latest word on the Route 26 upgrades and what he termed “feasible.”
But with that major project on the horizon, Izzo queried the business owners assembled Wednesday as to whether they might prefer the county hold off on the near-term schedule for sewer expansion and coordinate all of the roadwork for 2014, with a single, continuous — if longer — disruption.
The “no action” alternative, Izzo said, would delay sewer service for those served by the expansion project from 2009 to 2015. It would also be likely to increase connection rates for those in the sewer expansion area, since the districts are self-supporting entities that would have to support rising materials and labor costs with increased hook-up fees to property owners.
As it stands, property owners with structures built prior to June 30, 2003, are set to pay about $2,300 to connect, while those with structures built after that date are looking at $5,113. Were the project delayed, those figures would both rise, Izzo said.
Still, Hattier said he preferred the project be delayed, suggesting that any cost savings would not be so great as to justify the additional disruption of the roadway.
“While there may be a short-term advantage in building the sewer line first and separately, I feel that any advantage gained is lost compared to public disruption of the road services,” he wrote. “We are being asked to believe that everything will go according to your schedule. The last sewer expansion argues against that.”
“I am guessing that in the next four or five year period we can expect road disruptions for three of four of those years,” Hattier continued.
“The impact to local businesses is going to be profound,” he wrote. “If we expand the sewer at the same time as the road expansion, we can expect the road disruptions to be roughly half as long. We would also not be duplicating efforts in blocking traffic, digging up shoulders and repaving where under-road piping does not work.”
Decisions looming on project timeline
While Izzo said he was open to considering ideas such as an initial delay of the project or other minor shifts, he did warn those present on May 30 that the county council was unlikely to agree to hold off on the project until 2014 or 2015.
“The only way this won’t move forward over the next two years is if the business community came to the [Millville] town council, and the town council came to the county council and formally requested we not move the project forward,” Izzo warned.
Such solid opposition to a September 2007 start date appeared to be lacking, at least on Wednesday.
Izzo took an informal poll of those at the meeting. Of nearly 40 people there, four said they favored the project moving forward over the next two years. Another handful said they favored a delay to coordinate with the Route 26 road project. The rest refused to commit to one or the other.
Reasons for the stances varied, from those eager to have their own on-site septic systems replaced sooner rather than later to those who would rather see a single construction period rather than endure two major projects in a handful of years.
Izzo offered a second meeting, set for Wednesday, June 13, at 9 a.m. at Millville Town Hall. He said the two-week period better suited the county staff than a month’s wait, as they are looking at deadlines to get the project moving forward for the planned September start and would like final input from local businesses as soon as possible.