Culvert Job to Close Route 32 in Bremen for 30 Days

Weather permitting, a culvert replacement along the course of Muscongus Brook in Bremen will close Route 32 for 30 days beginning Monday, Sept. 8, according to a notice from Hagar Enterprises.

The Damariscotta company is tasked with replacing an existing culvert located about 1.3 miles south of Biscay Road with a precast, three-sided concrete box, which will allow the stream to flow over the natural ground, according to Shawn Smith, a project manager for the Department of Transportation.

The total project, including engineering and permitting costs, is about $430,000, and Hagar Enterprises’ winning bid for the work was $312,000, Smith said.

The company plans to post project updates on its Facebook page.

Hagar Enterprises replaced a pair of culverts on the brook with a bridge last summer, which eliminated the need for a small fish ladder to assist alewives on their return to spawn in Webber Pond.

Smith said the culvert replacements were not because of the alewives.

“In both cases, last year’s and this year’s, both culverts were in very, very poor shape,” he said.

Both projects are partially supported by outside partners.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, American Rivers, and other natural resource agencies contributed to last year’s project, according to The Lincoln County News archives.

Kennebec County Soil and Water Conservation District contributed around $140,000 to this year’s culvert replacement, Smith said.

As was the case with the contractor in a recent road-closing culvert replacement on Route 213 in Newcastle, Hagar will face a monetary incentive to meet the road closure timetable for the project.

Though there will considerations for issues like lengthy weather events, Smith said, the DOT has a prorated “liquidated damage” it will apply to Hagar if the company goes over the closure limit. The damage grows incrementally by day, he said.

The dual culvert replacement Hagar did last summer kept the road closed about a week later than planned, but it was due to a design change.

Kitty Breskin, a senior geotechnical engineer with the DOT, told The Lincoln County News the cinder blocks originally planned to face the soil bridge abutments were “bouncing around” as the soil was compacted.

The design was changed to incorporate poured concrete facings, and Hagar poured them the very next day, Breskin said.

“I can’t speak highly enough of them. I was really pleased,” Breskin said at the time.

This year’s project was pushed back after Round Pond business owners, who were negatively affected by the mid-summer closure of Route 32 in 2013, and state legislators met with DOT officials in June.

The project was originally planned to begin July 15.

Though Route 32 in Bremen is planned to get light capital paving in 2015, there should be no need to fully close the road to complete the work, Smith said.

Having spoken with the department’s maintenance staff, the culvert replacement should be the last road closure planned on Route 32 for a while, Smith said.

During the road closure this year, the official detour for southbound traffic will be a right onto Biscay Road followed by a series of lefts onto Main Street in Damariscotta, School Street, Route 130, and Lower Round Pond Road, which connects back to Route 32, according to Smith.

The northbound detour would be the same route in reverse.

According to Hagar Enterprises’ Facebook page, both Shore Road and Rial Herald Road will be posted “local traffic only” for the duration of the project.

According to AOS 93 Superintendent Steve Bailey, only one Bremen student who attends Great Salt Bay Community School will be affected by the closure, and the student will be picked up at one end of Shore Road.

How many secondary students may be affected by the closure is not clear. First Student, the company which Bailey said transports the town’s high school students, did not respond to a request for comment.