By Steve Plunkett
The water level below the surface in Gulf Stream’s Core district is higher than anyone expected and stalled the onset of road work for weeks while the contractor sought an additional permit.
Residents were quick to notice that not much progress was being made.
“I see six guys here one day and nobody the next, and I’m just wondering … are they doing … what you expected to be done at this point or what?” Bob Burns, a past president of the Gulf Stream Civic Association, asked town commissioners at their May 14 meeting.
“We’ve had two or three residents call because they didn’t see an update on the website that they said we’re paying so much money for that’s supposed to be updated weekly,” added Town Clerk Renee Basel.
Construction was supposed to begin the week of April 22, but workers soon discovered how high the water table is.
That meant the town would need a “dewatering” permit from the South Florida Water Management District to pump water out of the way and a change in how the pipes would be put in.
“Typically water mains are installed about 3 feet below grade in dry conditions. We’re going to allow them to bring them up slightly, about a foot or so,” said Jockey Prinyavivatkul of Baxter and Woodman Consulting Engineers. “And then during the backfilling process we use flowable fill, which is a concrete material which can be excavated in the future.”
The schedule had already been changed to begin construction in the north end of the Core district, along Wright Way and Old School Road, instead of on Golfview Drive in the south because the north end is the lowest part of Gulf Stream and more susceptible to fall’s high king tides.
Adding to the high water table was a faulty check valve on an outflow pipe on Wright Way that was letting water come in from the Intracoastal Waterway instead of blocking it, Prinyavivatkul said.
“There’s definitely some issues going on that we are working with the contractor on. And hopefully once we begin to progress, basically the procedures of how they’re going to do the construction work will start to smooth out and the pace will increase,” he said.
But, he said, it usually takes the SFWMD a month or so to issue such a permit.
The town’s original permit was to increase the amount of stormwater runoff it can discharge into the Intracoastal.
Basel said she relayed concerns about updates on the website, corearearoadwork.com, and was told Baxter and Woodman had been waiting on the dewatering permit. An update with a photo was posted the next day, and the engineers promised weekly additions.
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