Let Not the Creaking Around Huntsville

Some road repair news out of Huntsville, courtesy the Item:

City OKs funds for Town Creek project (January 11)

The City of Huntsville will receive the necessary help to fill out a questionnaire that could earn the city an $11.1 million federal grant to fund its Town Creek Drainage Project.

City manager Bill Baine said there is a possibility of Sam Houston State University contributing $12,500 toward the cost of the study and Walker County has been approached about contributing $5,000, but he said he isn’t sure about the county contributing.

“I remain confident and optimistic that we’re going to get the grant, otherwise I wouldn’t ask for your money,” Baine said. “It’s our intention to open parts of it up and build a series of lakes, which over time become green features of our city.

“It makes a lot of sense. The water roars down off the hill and we’ve had 7th Street flood on an inch and a half rain, so what happens when we get an inch and a half in an hour. What happens when we get a big rain because the big rain is coming. It’s just a matter of time.

[Blaine] said Town Creek starts at Sam Houston State University and “they’re using Bearkat Boulevard as a retention pond. That needs to come to a halt. The city and the university’s cooperation is improving and I hope to be in a situation that the university accepts responsibility for their water and the city helps them dispose of it properly and then we give our residents a safe place to be and to the extent that we can turn it into a linear park."

Robinson Creek Work (January 11)

Work crews from several different City of Huntsville departments started working in late December on improving the infrastructure on a 2,000-foot stretch of Robinson Creek that runs through Raven Nest Golf Course and flows under the bridge crossing Veterans Memorial Parkway. Erosion of the creek’s banks was nearly exposing an 18-inch sewer line located next to the creek and just 2 feet deep. Project manager Tom Weger said they are restabilizing the embankments along the creek, placing rip-rap and dirt along the banks followed by old construction material and concrete from the transfer station. Weger said work is also scheduled under the Veterans Parkway bridge where erosion is taking place and needs to be filled in. Weger said water runoff from the Lake Road area is responsible for much of the erosion. He said the city is taking precautionary efforts to keep water and sewer lines along the creek from being washed out by the erosion and make sure they stay in tact.