By PETER GUINTA
Created 05/07/2011 - 12:01am
Concrete from temporary Bridge of Lions used to cap old garbage dump
Summary:
St. Augustine City Manager John Regan pointed to the hundreds of thousands of white stones lining the shore of the city's former garbage dump Thursday and said, "You're looking at the temporary bridge."
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
St. Augustine City Manager John Regan pointed to the hundreds of thousands of white stones lining the shore of the city's former garbage dump Thursday and said, "You're looking at the temporary bridge."
By early July, the city will have permanently capped the old dump at the end of Riberia Street with fill dirt, covered that with a foot of rich topsoil and then covered that with sod.
The property will then be designated "unrestricted land" that can be used for any purpose.
Volkswagen-sized chunks of bridge columns were further crushed by the contractor to provide the football-sized stones placed neatly along the shore.
Regan is proud that 90 percent of the bridge's concrete was recycled, as was its rebar.
"We've recovered land that used to be an old landfill and recycled the temporary bridge," he said. "This is a huge conservation program. Soon we're going to have to figure out what to do with it."
There are many options, he said.
One is to use part of the land as an "alternative energy farm" that could turn solar energy into electricity to power the city's wastewater and solid waste plants, saving money for the city.
"We might qualify for Department of Energy grants (for that)," he said.
All possible uses will be evaluated and the staff's recommendations will be presented to the City Commission for final determination, he said.
Project Manager Todd Grant, deputy director of the Department of Public Works, said the construction work is being done by Environmental Land Services of Flagler County with oversight by Geosyntec Consultants of Jacksonville.
"The landfill was closed in the 1970s," Grant said. "When the state began regulating them, most municipal and county landfills closed."
In 2005, citizen complaints brought an investigation by the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation into the city's dumping of dirt from the Riberia Street landfill into a water-filled Holmes Boulevard borrow pit.
The city said it wanted to grow the marsh and wetlands.
DEP fined the city $33,698. The city also had to sign an agreement stating that the contaminated dirt would be removed from the borrow pit, along with other conditions.
Martha Graham, director of public works, was not with the city when that happened.
On Thursday, she said the landfill cap installed now is designed so that water will not go into it.
"The concrete hardening (of the shore) eliminates the possibility of a storm washing the garbage into the river," she said.
City Comptroller Mark Litzinger said initial cost estimates for this project neared $800,000, with the necessary money coming from the 2011 bond issue.
"We may not use all of it," Litzinger said.
Regan agrees heartily.
He said the city saved $675,000 by using recycled concrete on the shoreline.
"Our final cost could be around $124,000," he said.
He stood Thursday in a gentle wind, surveying the steady progress by the workmen.
The landscape surrounding the Riberia Street property is primarily river grass and marsh, which is home to many water birds. Also near is the soaring State Road 312 bridge and the deep blue confluence of the Matanzas and San Sebastian rivers.
"These 10 acres at the end of Lincolnville could become St. Augustine's version of (New York's) Battery Park," Regan said. "This is a proper closure according to state law design standards. It's well engineered."
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