High water slows riverfront project

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February 8, 2010

Carrie Stambaugh/The Independent The Daily Independent Mon Feb 08, 2010, 07:36 PM EST

Ashland — The wet, wintry weather plaguing the Tri-State in recent months is slowing construction of Ashland’s Riverfront Park.

Officials say the first phase of construction is still on schedule to be completed in time to host Summer Motion, but with one exception — the restroom facilities.

Residents may soon be able to watch park progress live via streaming video accessible through the city’s Web site at www.ashlandky.gov.

Ashland engineer Ryan Eastwood said the camera should be up and running within the next month. “You’ll be able to control it, move it around and zoom in — at least for a couple of minutes before it kicks you off to make sure someone else can have access,” he said. Eastwood said the camera will stay in place after construction is finished.

He said contractors are making progress on a variety of components of the first phase, but work has been stopped completely at times by high water and/or cold temperatures.

“In the last month or so we’ve really been held up because of the (Ohio) river flooding,” Eastwood said on Friday. “The river has probably been up and down above the riverwalk area two or three times. Every time it gets up it deposits a fresh layer of silt. The contractor has to clean it off and he doesn’t want to unless he is going to get a big long period of dry weather.”

As a result, workers have moved to higher ground where they are working on the restrooms and retaining walls, he said.

Workers finished driving approximately 100 pike piles, each 60 to 65 feet long, needed to support the mound structure that will contain the restrooms, and have also poured the facility’s concrete footer. Eastwood said workers “have started going vertical on some of the walls for the restroom” as well.

As soon as the weather breaks and the water recedes, Eastwood said work will resume on the riverwalk itself, built on top of a series of river walls.

Workers previously finished driving pilings and filling in behind the walls, which were needed to reclaim a portion of land once underwater and reduce the park’s slope.

Large precast concrete panels have already been put in place over the steel beam structure, but workers are waiting to pour more concrete over the panels to form the cantilevered walkway, Eastwood said.

“These river walls are kind of scalloped. They have curves in them but the riverwalk itself will be straight,” he explained. “It has an edge that hangs out anywhere from six feet to six inches beyond these scallops.”

“They were ready to start doing pours on the riverwalk itself and then the water came up. It basically just deposited mud,” Eastwood said.

Maintaining the concrete riverwalk and boat ramp will be much easier when completed, he said. Right now, workers are dealing with the mud on a gravel base, which has rebar poking out of it as well. He compared it to trying to clean mud out of the treads of a pair of boots.

“Once the concrete is down it’s like cleaning mud off your flats. We’re going to be able to go down there and scrape it off really easy. Every city that has a park like this below the flood plain, they get to be pros at cleaning it. It’s nothing new. It’s just part of maintenance,” Eastwood said.

CARRIE STAMBAUGH can be reached at cstambaugh@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.

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