We Bid Thee Well

Among the more routine undertakings by borough council is the awarding of bids, by law, to the lowest qualified bidder.

At tonight's meeting, they are poised to award four, for a variety of projects around Pottstown.

Perhaps the most expensive is a $389,000 bid which will be awarded for "storm sewer arch improvement."

As has become painfully clear in the last few years, as Pottstown was developed over the decades, the many streams and runs which ran through the area were, in essence, paved over.

Or rather, arches were built over them, many of them brick and mortar and many, now beginning to crumble.

Mercury Photo by Kevin Hoffman

This arch repair on the 100 block of Walnut Street cost
more than $400,000 to replace.

In the past several years, the borough has grappled with collapses on the 100 block of Walnut Street in 2004, North Hanover and Grant streets, as well as collapse on private property at the site of the former Frederick Brothers mill in 2011 at East and North Hanover streets.

The Walnut Street arch cost more than $400,000 to repair, although the borough did get $250,000 of the cost back from the federal government.

This current project, paid with a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will allow the borough to install "access" manhole covers in those on public property along the arch that covers the stream that enters the Manatawny Creek at Walnut Street.

Tracing it back upstream, it snakes through the borough, with one branch reaching sunlight opposite Lincoln Elementary School on North York Street, and another beneath the Frederick Brothers site and finally at Highland Cemetery and up into Upper Pottsgrove.

Mercury Photo by John Stricker

Public Works Director Doug Yerger inside

a storm arch near King Street.

Public Works Director Doug Yerger said access is needed in order to assess the condition of the arches. "We can't fix them if we don't know where they're falling down," he said.

Some money is supposed to be left over to "get and improve" some of the worst parts of this arch.

That money will probably be spent on Spruce Street where "we're having an arch that's beginning to collapse," Yerger said.

"The situation there is the same as the arch on Grant Street," which collapsed last winter, Yerger said.

"The water got underneath the foundation and undermined the foundation. We've got 30 feet of falling foundation and its going to get worse if we don't get it fixed," Yerger said.

 "These days, the rain comes in downpours anymore," observed Pottstown Borough Council President Stephen Toroney. "That has the water rushing through at high speed and its really bad for storm arches."

Photo by Evan Brandt

This arch, which collapsed on Grant Street near
The Hill School, 

has been repaired.

He added with a smile, "just like with your feet, falling arches are not a good thing."

The second most expensive bid to be awarded is $300,000 for street re-paving.

Yerger said the money should pay for about "a mile and three-quarters."

Related to that is a bid to replace manhole frames and lids, which are often left above or below grade grade when roads are re-paved.

As the photo here suggests, the last those bids will be for new street lights on High Street between Hanover and Manatawny streets.

Photo by Evan Brandt

The street lights along East High Street, between
Hanover and Manatawny streets, 

shown,
will be replaced as part of the bid expected to be
approved tonight.

Assistant Borough Manager Erica Weekley told council the borough received eight bids for the project and the winning bid, which came in at $174,000 is just under the $175,000 the borough received in a grant from Community Development Block Grant funds.

These funds come from the federal government and are administered through Montgomery County.

Weekley said the grant was received some time ago, but the project could not be put out to bid until some regulatory procedures were cleared up.

"We think it will make a nice improvement to downtown," she said of the lights.