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Infrastructure improvements for Wards 4 and 5 will go out to bid in the coming weeks, on the heels of Wheeling's public works committee considering which stormwater management projects should receive funding through the American Rescue Plan Act.
The brief meeting was held Thursday afternoon at the city building, where the members of the committee - Jerry Sklavounakis, Ben Seidler, and Ty Thorngate, with City Manager Robert Herron and City Clerk B.J. Delbert on hand as well - discussed the problem areas of the city which would benefit from the infrastructure work.
The projects sent out to bid are:
- Storm sewer placements at Gaewood/Elm Terrace
- Storm sewer extension at Greenwood/Rush Avenue
- Storm sewer from South Huron to Virginia Street
- Storm sewer extension at Overbrook
- Storm sewer extension at Valley View
- Sanitary sewer truck line at Valley View
- Box culvert at Miller Street
- Storm sewer improvement from Siebert to Edgington Lane
The bids will be brought before Wheeling's city council at a future meeting. Sklavounakis estimated the overall cost at between $2.5 and $3 million. The city received around $29.5 million in ARPA funding from the federal government, and all of that pandemic relief funding must be spent by the end of 2024.
The overall goal of many of these projects is to reduce flooding in areas prone to doing so during periods of heavy rain.
"We worked with city staff to try and identify projects where we'd get the best return on investment," Sklavounakis said. "… This is another step the city council is taking to try and address flooding in our neighborhoods."
The Miller Street box culvert replacement was one area of particular concern, from the city's perspective. Over the years, Herron said, debris had accumulated in the culvert, nearly plugging it, while being extremely difficult to clean.
Water pollution control superintendent Andy Harris said that replacing it and making it easier to maintain would be a huge boon, as machines currently can't maneuver inside the culvert for cleaning.
"You'd have to almost close the street down, rip the top of that road off, put a new pipe in," Sklavounakis said. "That sounds like a valuable project. That sounds like it makes a difference right there."
"I think that would help tremendously with heavy deluges very quickly, because that's where the flooding starts, right there," Herron added. "That's where the water jumps out of the creek and jumps into peoples' yards."