Northport levee repair on track for August completion
By John Barker, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, is in the midst of repairing the Northport, Ala., levee, to address a crack that was first discovered in 2010. The project is nearing completion and is expected to be finished on schedule in late August.
The turf on the levee must grow to an acceptable level prior to final contract payment and turnover of the project to the City of Northport, but the project will be considered essentially complete in the next couple of weeks. Currently, the section of the levee is about 90 percent complete,” said Mobile District’s Project Engineer Arlyn Marheine. “The contractor is placing stone as erosion control along the streamside of the levee before completing the finishing-grade and grass-seeding of approximately 750- linear feet of levee repair and realignment. Weather permitting, final grass-seeding and willow-planting complete the levee project on schedule, toward the end of August.”
Total cost for the design and construction for the levee repair is an estimated $1.7 million, of which, 35 percent is locally funded by the City of Northport as the non-federal sponsor. The estimate also includes credit for lands and easements, as necessary, to conduct the repair and relocation.
For the project, Mobile District removed and disposed of approximately 3,000 cubic yards of debris and soil. In addition, they imported close to 3,300 cubic yards of compacted suitable soils from the city’s borrow site and transferred approximately 8,000 cubic yards of compacted soil from the adjacent old levee embankment.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ original construction of the levee was a $4.2 million project that was completed in August 1999. In July 2010, Mobile District’s levee inspection team discovered a significant crack during a routine, annual inspection.
“The selected alternative to repair was to realign approximately 750 feet of levee, moving it landward from Two-Mile Creek,” said Dean Trawick, project manager. “The new design incorporates geotextiles which also reduce potential for settlement which may have contributed to the crack.”
The levee was constructed under Section 205 of the Continuing Authorities Program, or CAP. CAP projects are cost-shared and any modifications determined necessary post-construction are to be cost-shared as well.
The City of Northport is located in west Alabama on the Black Warrior River, approximately 60 miles southwest of Birmingham.