KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Come January, city officials in Kingston hope to finally have most of the repair work finished on the Washington Avenue sinkhole. But they've run into some last-minute challenges.
City Engineer Ralph Swenson said debris got in the sanitary sewer pipe headwall through an entrance near the sinkhole. Swenson said the debris is in the worst possible place.
"Roughly 80 feet underground," he said, "so there's no direct access to the sanitary sewer at that point. There's not manholes in the tunnel every 200 to 300 feet."
Swenson said a surge at the Tannery Brook blew a steel plate off the headwall, breaching the sewer. Swenson said workers are cutting holes in the pipe to remove debris, and looking at ways to prevent a repeat.
“I believe we will want to put some sort of grate in front of that opening," Swenson said, "so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen in the future.”
Swenson said this won't delay the work on the sinkhole, because a separate crew is working on that. But it's still a challenging job.
“At some point we’re going to need access at the Tannery Brook Shaft to pump down the surcharge in the sanitary sewer if we can’t fully dislodge all the debris," he said.
Officials said Washington Avenue is expected to be back open to local traffic next month.
It's been a nearly five-year repair job since the sinkhole opened in 2011 -- and one that, it seems, is determined to cause headaches right up until the end.