Landslide in Peters Township could be $500,000 fix
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Part of Hidden Valley Road near Valley Brook Country Club in Peters Township is down to a single lane.
Part of Hidden Valley Road near Valley Brook Country Club in Peters Township is down to a single lane.
Peters Township could face a cost of about $500,000 to repair a road that provides the only direct access to one of the more exclusive properties in Washington County.
Members and guests of Valley Brook Country Club have been inconvenienced lately by the narrowing of Hidden Valley Road to one lane for a short stretch near the club entrance as the township addresses a landslide issue.
“This hillside, which the township attempted to stabilize back in the 1980s, is beginning to give way again,” township manager Paul Lauer said during Monday’s Peters council meeting. “If you go out to the road, you will see cracking on the road, but you also, if you look down over the hill, will see cracking that occurs down the entire slope of the hillside.”
Gateway Engineers has taken borings to help determine the severity of the situation, and the company provided a cost estimate to arrive at a solution.
“Obviously, a solution hasn’t been engineered yet, but my guess is that it’s going to be a typical solution you see throughout Western Pennsylvania, which is what they call a beam-and-lagging wall,” township engineer Mark Zemaitis of Gateway said, referring to a common excavation support technique.
“It’s a fairly foolproof solution, but they are kind of expensive,” he continued. “We would probably have to stabilize about 200 feet of roadway to stop the slide. I would think that between relocation of the power lines, the hard costs involved in construction, and the soft costs involved in engineering and inspection, you’re probably looking in the neighborhood of half a million dollars.”
Lauer said the township has been working with West Penn Power regarding a line that passes directly above the site of the slide.
“It will need to be relocated to the other side of the street,” he explained. “They are evaluating that right now and determining what the cost would be. One of the things they’re suggesting is that they may be willing to actually take that line underground and avoid putting up additional poles there.”
The township did not budget for such an occurrence this year.
“One of the things we are in the process of doing is reviewing our existing budget to find out where there are potential projects that can be deferred, or projects where, because of the pricing that we received, there are actually some savings to be had,” Lauer said.
Frank Arcuri Jr., council chairman, suggested proceeds from the township’s recently approved nonsurface gas lease with EQT Corp. could cover much of the expense. Valley Brook would not be involved in contributing.
“This is a public road that the township took over long before I was here,” Lauer, who has been working in Peters administration since the mid-’80s, said. “I think it’s the obligation of the township to maintain its road. We do want to talk to the country club to make sure we can work out some kind of cooperative arrangement, because we may need access to some of their parking lots.”
Councilman James Berquist, who is a Valley Brook member, said an alternative way out of the club is a golf-cart bridge across Chartiers Creek, which “can handle cars, one at a time.”
He abstained from an otherwise unanimous vote to authorize emergency purchasing procedures to expedite the repair work.