Local officials, residents prepare for potential closure of Whittier Road
A portion of the Whittier Road is in danger of collapsing into the Sandy River. This photo was taken in mid-July, before several inches of rain fell recently, which knocked more banking into the river. (Photos by Bobbie Hanstein)
FARMINGTON - With salmon assessments and environmental regulations blocking a project to stabilize an eroding portion Whittier Road, local officials are preparing to close off the section if necessary.
Since August 2011, after Hurricane Irene and an intense storm a week later took a 50-foot chunk of banking, erosion along a portion of the Whittier Road has continued at an alarming rate, leaving the river roughly 35 feet off the Whittier Road. Town Manager Richard Davis noted that there was about a four-foot overhang off the shoulder that had been undercut by erosion; once that goes, he said, the road would likely have to close.
"Once that breaks off we're probably done," Davis said Friday. "There's nothing else to stop [the erosion]."
Some oil companies were already diverting deliveries around the at-risk section, Davis said. The town imposed a weight limit of 23,000 pounds for vehicles using the impacted portion of the road in late June. That posting did not included oil trucks or school buses.
Mt. Blue Regional School District Transportation Director Dave Leavitt said the school district was closely monitoring the condition of the road for school buses. If Whittier Road is deemed unsafe, or outright closed, buses would take the Knowlton Corner Road.
The town submitted a grant application for a hazard mitigation grant administered by Federal Emergency Management Agency totaling $227,000 at the end of April. If approved, the matching grant, with 75 percent picked up by the U.S. government and 25 percent by the town, would pay for a mitigation plan which included installing mature tree root balls anchored with boulders in deep trenches to stabilize the bank. The plan was expected to not only protect the bank from further erosion, but build it back up by capturing silt deposits from the river.
However, local officials learned in July that FEMA intends to require the town to complete a biological assessment under Section 7 of Endangered Species Act, in order to determine the potential impact of the project on the local salmon habitat. That assessment is expected to take weeks, and the stabilization project can only be completed in a "low-water" window that stretches from mid-July to the end of September.
A teleconference between local and federal officials was held yesterday, in an effort to quantify the scope and timeline of the assessment. Davis said the town received no clear answers in regards to what would need to happen, assessment-wise, in order to begin stabilizing the bank within the low-water window.
At this point, Davis said, it is probably too late. The town has barricades and road signs on order should the road collapse.
One of the more frustrating things about the whole process, Davis said, was the likely collapse of the Whittier Road into the Sandy River couldn't be to the benefit of the salmon population.
Previous estimates, cited by local officials and Maine's congressional delegation, which has asked FEMA to reconsider the assessment requirement, have the cost of repairing the road equaling roughly three times that of the stabilization project.
A wider shot of the region. (Photos by Bobbie Hanstein)
Entries(RSS)
Glad that road was just re-paved! Brilliant use of our tax money!
Guess following the cow path wasn't the swiftest idea.....................
I wonder why work on this road has been halted until it is determined that there will be no impact to the salmon, but a half-mile down the river it is business as usual installing a boat launch off Rt. 2 near the Farmington Falls/New Sharon town line.
WHAT ARE OUR ELECTED PEOPLE WE PUT IN CONGRESS , I THOUGHT WE ELECTED THEM TO GET THINGS DONE. WHERE ARE THEY WHEN YOU WANT THEM? O WELL THEY ARE TOO BUSY.
And the TreeHuggers Rejoice !!!
Hip Hip Horay !!
While the feds are fast asleep.
Like the town mgr said,,,How are the Salmon gona like the humungous shot of sand they're gonna get when the road collapses.
Sand is falling into the river now and has been,,,
The best way to cook Salmon is to marinate them and grill them on tin foil...
Peel off the skin and serve......
If you pull back and look at this from higher up, the river is meandering ever closer, threatening to oxbow during some major rain event. The Sandy has been doing this for centuries. The river valley has dozens of oxbows, now dry and growing crops and trees. In the closest part of the oxbow, it is only 600 feet from the river on one side to the river on the other.
The simplest solution would be to nudge along the natural occurance, and divert the river. The the problem area next to Whitter Rd. would dry up, becoming usable crop and forest land, and mining area, again.
I stress, this is going to happen sometime anyway.
What ever happended to America's "can do" attitute? What happended to "Yankee Ingenuity"?
BTW, the Salmon were just recently re-introduced by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the MDIFW.
"We the people" of the Sandy River valley have been dealing with the Sandy for close to 300 years. We know what to do. Washington should concentrate on the Potomic River.
Leadership anyone?
Tell the Federal government to "go jump in a lake" (river)!
This is good example of why we're doomed.
i agree the river should be diverted thru where they are now mining dirt and kept well away from the road ,both the whittier road and route 156 would benefit from this.and i'll bet the cost of diverting the river is also less expensive then rebuilding the bank.further down the river in new sharon on the davis farm the river has cut thru their land naturallly and cut them off from acres of land ,just over the last 5 years have they been able to access that land .so its just a matter of time before the river cuts this corner off too ,why not help it along.?
Pete took the words right out of my mouth. Call Kevin V. and within two days the problem would be a mute issue.
Pete Tracy has the right idea, but do you know how many years it would take to jump through all the enviornmental hoops to get it done?
Excellent letter, Peter Tracy! Bobbie Hanstein's aerial photograph shows very clearly what should be done, and what nature will do. Just give a little nudge to geologic process. After all, this whole affair is the blink of an eye in the history of a river, but a great event in the daily lives of people who live here.
I am glad I don't live in the house in the first photo. Waiting for the government to do something or for nature to form an Oxbow ( I do remember that from my school-ing) may be too long for them. Peter is right, dig, divert and give nature a head start.
Well done Pete. Sometimes asking forgiveness is better than permission and generally gets the job done.
Sandy River Salmon...first big flood , see ya' later.
Us humans are the endangered species because we focus more on wildlife than mankind. Humans are suposed to be the most inteligent species but it looks like the salmon are beating us.
Isn't that the house they moved across the road years ago?
Lemon Pepper Marinade,,,
all day in a zip lock bag,,,
Grill on low low low,,,
Once the Salmon is cooked thru,,,
Peel the skin off and serve,,,,
Yummy !!!
Love the taste of Salmon,,,especially the ones just downstream of Farmington Falls.
Wonder what the fines would be IF we just dealt with this? Since the tax payers are nearly bankrupt anyway, the fines would bankrupt the town. Then we'd get some Fed. assistance. Right now, they're just sitting around with their hands in their pockets. AskMe.. has hit the nail on the head. Common sense has long abandoned the Fed Gov't. I'm with Pete Tracy. So dig 'er up and Git 'er Done (and over with!!!) !!!
Long before the flood of 1936, we had a major oxbow near in-town Farmington. The river flowed down behind the Intervale/Soccer Fields then took a huge swing toward Lower Front Street. Remnants of the old river bed can be seen right beside Lower Front and behind McD's. Comes the flood of 1936, and the river cut right thru to do exactly what Peter Tracy said, and while we didn't get a whole lot of farm land out of it, the river sure is straighter right there. Makes for great canoeing!! I don't know what the impact would be for the folks in Farmington Falls should the river go straight thru rather than around a curve, but it couldn't be any worse than in 1987. And the Town of Farmington can't afford much more in the way of expense dealing with this river. It costs us tax payers a LOT of money every time we have a major flood. And if the river changes near the sewer treatment plant (another Oxbow situation), it's going to cost the sewer users a ton of money. MILLIONS to be exact because the treatment plant will have to be relocated or the outflow will have to be rerouted again. And most of us just can't bear the expense.
The foot-dragging and failure to take timely action is easily explained, just take a read of Philip Howard's THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE: HOW LAW IS SUFFOCATING AMERICA. Politicians and bureaucrats are actually in a CYA mode most all of the time. They are more conscerned with PROCESS, than getting things done in a timely way. Government is not quite our friend. It is like having a slow, lead footed, short sighted, and expensive employee you can't fire because he is your wife's brother. Howard's book, still in print, is an enraging, sometimes appalling, and amazing piece of research. Well worth reading.
Process is what law is alll about. It is supposed to make an even playing field. Maybe it does....
Quote of Ronald Reagan:
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
When you stand there with your hand out asking the feds to anti up 75 percent of the cost you're subject to their "thoughts, concerns, and studies".
Check on the cost for the job and who has to take on the liability (don't want to see poor Vining tagetted by DEP), then start digging the "new", diverted river path..ASAP. Let's go people. Waiting for "free" money could make or break us here and surely cost us more in the end.
50 +/- years ago we would have just taken over and cut through the ox-bow and been done with this matter and it would not have cost a dam thing cause the sand that would be mined out would have gone to good use. the salmon and all the other game fish would have survived as they have for thousands of years. Mother nature has and always will adapt just the same as we as humans do cause we are all a part of this planet. I have to agree with Pete.
Look at the bright side. The brown double-wide in the photo will soon be waterfront property and the town will be able to tax it at a higher value.
I still don't understand why the trees were cut down - I would think a living root-system would be more helpful in slowing erosion than dead trees.
OK,,,NOW that we've "showed our hand" here,,,,We need to get prepared.
Whoever is driving the excavator better have someone out front of them to shoo away the activists or lead him around them as they lay themselves down as a sacrifice for brother salmon.....
The RSU 9 Superintendent, Mike Cormier, has announced today that the annual cost for closing the road will be about $28,000.