Luzerne County’s Flood Protection Authority board approved a contract Tuesday to address this erosion inching toward part of the Wyoming Valley Levee system flood wall along Riverside Drive in Wilkes-Barre. The flood wall is behind the orange netting.
Times Leader File Photo
A contractor has been conditionally hired to address erosion creeping toward part of the Wyoming Valley Levee wall in Wilkes-Barre.
Soil and rock have been sliding downhill in recent months at the site near the intersection of Riverside Drive and Academy Street, adjacent to the Black Diamond railroad bridge. Dirt must be replaced with large stone rip-rap to restore stability to the bank, officials have said.
Luzerne County’s five-citizen Flood Protection Authority board, which oversees the levee along the Susquehanna River, unanimously voted Tuesday to award the $650,150 project to DGR Excavating LLC, based in Granville Summit, Pennsylvania.
The award was made pending a review of DGR’s qualifications, submitted documentation, and a determination of how the project will be funded.
Authority Board Chairman Dominic Yannuzzi said authority representatives have a Wednesday meeting scheduled with state legislators to discuss potential funding.
Once funding is identified, the project should take four to eight weeks to complete, Yannuzzi said.
An emergency action plan would be deployed at the site if the Susquehanna rises before the authority identifies funding or completes the project, he said.
Yannuzzi said he does not believe the wait to initiate the work will be long.
“We are optimistic that we’re going to find a funding source,” he said.
Fourteen companies submitted bids before the March 11 deadline, and DGR was the low bidder, the authority said.
The authority board also unanimously voted Tuesday to authorize staff to apply for state and federal grant funding for the project.
Past estimates for the work were as high as $800,000, but authority Executive Director Laura Holbrook had cautioned that bid submissions were needed for the final determination.
As part of the project, scouring holes in the Susquehanna must be filled in that area to ensure the repairs remain stable, Holbrook had said.
The solution also involves “very large rocks,” and contractor access to the site will be more challenging because it is surrounded by the flood wall, she had said.
Other business
In other updates on Tuesday:
• A past-proposed solar farm project on authority land is “officially dead,” Holbrook said.
The authority board had approved a lease option agreement in 2020 with New Jersey-based Infiniti Energy Services, which was seeking permits and exploring the feasibility of installing a solar farm with panels designed to float in the flood-prone Breslau Reservoir in Hanover Township. If the project had proceeded, the authority would have received a combined $988,500 over 25 years, officials said at the time.
Holbrook reported Tuesday that the company is out of business.
• The authority has received $561,000 from a state grant to address a railroad crossing atop the levee in Edwardsville, with the goal of eliminating an unpopular fencing barricade that impedes levee trail users, Holbrook said.
The fencing was installed in April 2023 to prevent the public from crossing an intersecting active Norfolk Southern Railway train line. The rail operator has expressed a willingness to consider eliminating fencing if the authority develops a strong new design that meets its safety requirements, Holbrook has said.
Holbrook said Tuesday that the first step will be to work with the railroad to reach an agreement on an acceptable new pedestrian and bicycle crossing option. Additional funding would be needed to complete the project if the construction cost exceeds the grant award, she said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
