LITTLE ROCK — Plans are in the pipeline to fix a drain - and free up prime parking space over it - at the foot of the Big Dam Bridge in Little Rock.
A chain-link fence, set up after a three-foot corrugated metal storm drain collapsed, has enclosed six of the lot's 40 spots since mid-May, officials said. The area will likely be closed until early fall, said Mark Webre, deputy director of operations for Little Rock's Parks and Recreation Department.
Rain in May probably corroded the pipe "at a critical stage of rot," Webre said last week.
The drain buckled the pavement over it neatly within the lines of one parking spot, Webre said. One of Little Rock Wastewater's cameras fed through the pipe's depths helped find the drain and expose its damage, headded. City workers excavated and determined the rest of the lot isn't in danger of being sucked into a sinkhole.
Tuesday evening, the fence, speckled with rust, still stood, yellow caution tape dangling from it.Cars lined the side of nearby Rebsamen Park Road ending at the Big Dam Bridge, a popular central Arkansas recreation site.
The $12.5 million bridge stretches 4,226 feet over the Arkansas River between North Little Rock and Little Rock. Built by Pulaski County, it is the world's longest bridge designed specifically for pedestrians and bicyclists, according to its Web Site. It has served as the unofficial western anchor of the region's River Trail loop since it opened in September 2006.
Replacing the drain is Little Rock's responsibility.
"The city leased that park probably in the mid-1980s and atthat time took over responsibility for operation and maintenance and replacement of facilities on the premises," said P.J. Spaul, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The drain was either built at that time or about 20 years earlier, during Murray Lock and Dam's construction, he added.
To replace the destroyed drain, the city submitted blueprints for a new, three-foot plastic drain for Corps approval Wednesday, Webre said. While the old drain emptied directly into the Arkansas River, the new one is designed to discharge above the river, he added.
Webre said he expected it to take up to two weeks to get approval from the Corps for the plans, and construction could take another four weeks.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 08/30/2009