Stella updated by MSA on road project details and lurking peat

The town of Stella’s $4 million Agricultural Roads Improvement Program (ARIP) grant road project is about a month behind schedule, but a June start to its construction is still square in the sights of engineer MSA Professional Services, the town board learned at its meeting last Tuesday, Feb. 10.

Phil Kriesel of MSA was on hand to present an update on the project, which is funded by a grant for projects that directly impact roads used for purposes such as agriculture and forestry. 

He explained the schedule delay — Stella’s heavy leaf cover last summer prevented MSA from flying a drone to collect LiDAR data until fall — and said the project would be bid in April and awarded in May, in time for construction in June. 

“Right now we are seeing softness in the industry,” he told the board. “We just opened bids for another ARIP project, and they were 40 percent low from our estimate. We also did another, non-ARIP project, and that one was something like 18 percent low. So right now contractors are pretty hungry for work, so that’s a good thing for us.”

He said by project’s end, roads will have been raised by 6 inches, with a 2-foot shoulder and 9 feet of pavement in each lane.

Soil borings have indicated a range in the depth of the existing asphalt thickness on Stella’s roads. “It’s interesting that there’s some areas that had 5 (inches) and some that were down to almost 2 inches,” he told the board. 

The borings also revealed the presence of peat along Spring Drive. Lurking 4 1/2 feet below the road, the peat extends deeper than the 6 feet sampled by the borings.

 Kriesel said the road will continue to settle as the peat naturally compresses and decomposes. Remediation isn’t currently part of the project.

“When you get into swamps like that,” he noted, “an old-timer one time told me ‘if there’s corduroy (logs) in the road, don’t touch it.’ We didn’t find corduroy when they did the boring, but my belief is that there’s probably corduroy that was laid on top of that and they just kept filling for the last 100 years.”

Asked by town board member Jerome Pokorny if anything could help, Kriesel mentioned a recent project in which a road’s gravel was removed, geogrid geosynthetic reinforcement material was put down, and the gravel was then put on top of the geogrid. The peat would continue to compress below, “but the grid would keep it on an even plane,” he said, inviting the board to let him know if they want to add it to the project as an alternate bid.  

In the meantime, designing the pavement thickness for the project, using software from the State of Wisconsin, is currently underway. 

“When we went into this project you guys had originally planned to put 3 1/2 inches on 3 inches, and so far everywhere that we’ve done the pavement design, that is holding up (to the expected weight of vehicles, such as logging trucks).” 

MSA’s work on the project plans is currently about 40 percent complete. Once the plans are at 90 percent, “my plan is to come to you,” he said. “I would ask for a special meeting to go through the plans with you instead of trying to do it at a town board meeting ... then we can just sit down and talk.”

Among other highlights of the meeting, the board:

• Approved a one-year USDA Beaver Damage Management Program contract for $1,600.

• Approved a $200 fee for a utility permit submitted within 30 days and a $500 fee for an after-the-fact utility permit.

• Revised the town hall rental agreement and fees to increase the resident rental fee to $75 per event/day, excluding events already scheduled.

• Set the date of their next regular meeting to be March 3, one week earlier than usual.

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].