Five years after a concrete wall collapsed into Woodsdale's Elm Run as a result of flooding associated with Hurricane Ivan in 2004, crews are working to replace the structure.

Elm Run, normally a shallow stream, has proven to be a problem for residents who live along or near Elm Street, especially when the area is saturated with heavy rainfall.

Robert Luchetti, Ohio County supervisor for the Northern Panhandle Conservation District, said there was so much work to be done after the 2004 flooding that many other projects in the Northern Panhandle took priority over the Elm Run project.

Now, he said, workers are finally able to fix the concrete wall along that stream.

John Cerasoli of James White Construction in Weirton said the firm has been working over the past few weeks to replace the concrete wall that had crumbled into a small section of Elm Run, just above Edgwood Street.

Cerasoli said crews removed the old sections of debris from the stream and have been building a new concrete wall.

"We poured a new footing and wall ... and we are putting backfill in behind the concrete wall," Cerasoli said.

Cerasoli said workers are diverting some of the water from the stream to a storm sewer further down the street while they place backfill behind the new wall.

"We don't want the water to come up and infiltrate the backfill," he noted.

Once the backfill work is complete, he said, workers can let the water flow normally again.

Cele Duvall, district supervisor for the Northern Panhandle Conservation District, said the cost of the Elm Run project is being shared equally by the West Virginia Conservation Agency and the Ohio County Commission.

She noted that the commission and Ohio County Administrator Greg Stewart brought the need for the project to the attention of the conservation district and asked for help.

The situation was evaluated by the West Virginia Conservation Agency's watershed personnel before it came to fruition.

Luchetti said the district also plans to fix a stream bottleneck that has caused flooding in the Woodsdale section of Wheeling in the past.