RUMFORD — Selectmen will convene a special meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30, to approve a recommended amount for the Dec. 15 special town meeting warrant.

The Finance Committee will also convene a special board meeting to do the same at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1. Both meetings will be held in the municipal building Conference Room.

Town Manager Carlo Puiia said Tuesday afternoon that selectmen and the committee need to specify and OK an amount to be taken from the Undesignated Fund account to buy and install a box culvert for Bean Brook on Swain Road.

The bridge was washed out Aug. 29 during Tropical Storm Irene. On Sept. 2, the gap was temporarily spanned with a logging bridge, the installation and use of which was donated by Rumford logger Jim Nicols of Nicols Brothers Logging Inc.

On Oct. 20, selectmen approved a box culvert bid for Swain Road at a cost of $99,855 from the George O. Roberts Precast Concrete Products of Alfred.

Selectmen voted 5-0 to hold a special town meeting to authorize use of Undesignated Funds to buy and install the culvert.

Because the work involves using a crane and avoiding overhead power lines and must fit under a sewer line, bid specifications were prepared to hire an outside contractor rather than use the Public Works crew.

Puiia said the town crew will do some support work around the project site, but the culvert installation itself will be done by a contractor.

Despite the late date for the special town meeting, he said he expects the work to be completed this winter. But the span itself won’t be paved until next spring.

“We’ll be able to install the culvert and back-fill it, but I doubt we’ll be able to get a binder coat on,” he said. “We’ll be able to at least make it traffic worthy, and then be able to pave in the spring.”

Due to requirements of the water flow and depth of the sewer line, a twin box culvert measuring 5 feet tall by 12 feet wide and 70 feet long will be installed, Puiia said.

“Because there’s a sewer line that runs through there, a box culvert cannot come up higher than the sewer line,” he said.

To compensate for the water volume, they had to go wider rather than higher, so that’s why the twin box culvert is needed to support the middle, Puiia said.

“We don’t anticipate anything of 12-foot width is going to come down sideways and lodge in it,” he said.

Because the previously-installed metal culverts were narrower, woody debris washing downstream sideways would jam against them, causing the brook to rise above the culverts to then erode gravel fill underneath the pavement.

“That’s why we had it engineered to make sure that what we had for water flow, the box culverts would be designed to meet that just so we avoid that kind of erosion issue that we’ve been having,” Puiia said.

During installation of the twin box culvert, through traffic will be interrupted for a few days, he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse Rumford for a large portion of the money and it will be deposited into the Undesignated Fund Balance, Puiia said.

He doesn’t expect FEMA’s Maine counterpart to reimburse the town at all because the culvert is being improved instead of returned to its original yet problematic condition.

Puiia said he anticipates recouping most of the money to be taken from the account pending voter approval on Dec. 15.

“That’s pretty much a guarantee that the mitigation will be at 75 percent reimbursement, so the town will pay some, but considering the improvement to the road and the durability and length of service that you’ll get from it, it’s money well spent,” Puiia said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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