Rehoboth plans stormwater project at Bayard Avenue
Rehoboth Beach officials are planning a $1 million upgrade to stormwater systems along Bayard Avenue.
The planned upgrades, part of the city’s five-year capital improvement plan, would be done in two phases. Design work would be completed during the 2018-19 budget year, followed by construction in 2019-20. Under the proposed plan, the design would cost $75,000 and construction would cost $925,000.
The project is a response to flooding issues in the Bayard Avenue watershed, primarily near Munson and Philadelphia streets. The flooding was first noticed in 2012, but the city has not had the money to commit to the project.
City engineer Bob Palmer said residents around Bayard Avenue reported flooding in 2012 and 2014 after storms that exceeded the 25-year storm event. Palmer’s report identified three properties in particular - 205 Munson and 204 and 206 Philadelphia streets. One home, Palmer said, had water so high it crested over top of the driveway and drained into the back of neighboring lots. He said this now happens almost every rain storm. Palmer said the storm drains running down Bayard Avenue is too small are too small to accommodate the volume of water coming in.
He said larger storm drains should be installed all along Bayard Avenue. Palmer said the study would give him an better idea of how large the pipe should be, where improvements are needed and how much the project should cost.
The storm drains around Bayard Avenue all flow into Silver Lake. City spokeswoman Krys Johnson said the Bayard Avenue watershed is different from the storm drains that flow into the ocean. The city was mandated by Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to study the stormwater pipes that lead into the ocean, but since Bayard Avenue’s stormwater system flows into Silver Lake, it was not part of the DNREC mandate, Johnson said.
Palmer said the city could look for funding through the state Water Infrastructure Advisory Council’s water quality loan, although that funding would require water quality improvements, like stormceptors, which capture solid material in stormwater before it flows into a larger body. He said water quality improvements could drive the price of the project over $1 million.
Palmer said Delaware Department of Transportation may require the city to install sidewalks that comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act as part of the project. These unknowns, Palmer said, could push the costs to $2 million.
Within the city’s draft capital improvement plan, the project has been deemed highly desirable because of the property damage caused by flooding at Munson and Philadelphia streets. The plan says a more comprehensive approach is required to solve these issues.
Mayor Paul Kuhns said the commissioners need to start looking at setting aside money dedicated to stormwater improvements on an annual basis, instead of reacting to problems.
The Bayard Avenue project is one of a series of stormwater and drainage improvements called for in the five-year plan. A similar project is called for at First Street, estimated cost $468,000, and a two phase project is planned to upgrade the storm sewers at Wilmington Avenue, which flow into the ocean. The estimated costs are for a two phase project - $207,000 for Phase 1 and $455,000 for Phase 2.
Regarding the Wilmington Avenue storm drains, Palmer said these drains were a disaster waiting to happen because the metal pipes are corroded and decaying. He said when city crews used a video camera to examine the condition of pipe from Delaware to Wilmington avenues, they couldn’t get more than 40 feet through because the camera was impeded by a piece of wood that had been supporting the pipes.
“At some point, the pipe will lose enough of its strength that it will collapse,” he said.
Once it collapses, Palmer said, the project will become more expensive because crews would have to excavate the dune the pipe runs under, pull out and replace the pipe and then rebuild the dune.
“To lose the dune because a culvert failed when it’s preventable, that’s what I mean by a catastrophe,” Palmer said.
When asked by Commissioner Lisa Schlosser what he thought the two most pressing projects were, Palmer said the Wilmington Avenue storm drains and the Bayard Avenue improvements.
