TxDOT plans drainage improvements

A $2.1 million project will resurface and improve drainage on US 287 through Clarendon next year, according to city and state officials.

City Administrator John Webb announced the project during last week’s Board of Aldermen meeting, noting the project will help alleviate flooding on East US 287 near the Calvary Baptist Church.

“My understanding is that there will be drainage inlets placed at several intersections to take that water under the highway,” Webb told the Enterprise this week.
The only cost to the city will be about $5,000 to move a water line serving three customers, Webb said.

“I think that’s pretty good for the city – a $2 million project for $5,000,” Webb said.

Texas Department of Transportation engineer Marty Smith said the project initially began as just a resurfacing of the highway through the city but at a meeting TxDOT’s Donley County Maintenance Supervisor Fu Benavidez mentioned drainage problems near the church and also near Lowe’s supermarket.

“We really planned at that point a bigger drainage system, but we had to pare it down after we researched the location of water and sewer lines,” Smith said.
Near the supermarket the project will just add inlets to an existing underground drainage duct, Smith said. The project on the east side of town will be more extensive with a box culvert going under the highway and work needed to carry that water in the natural drainage that leads to Clarendon Lake.

“It won’t be the perfect system, and there will still be events that will cause water to stand on the highway,” Smith said. “But it should drain off a lot more quickly.”
The project has already been approved by TxDOT officials in Austin and will go to bids in February, Smith said. Work should start in May or June of 2010 and is expected to last four to five months.

Resurfacing the highway should only take about a month, Smith said. That part of the project involves milling up three inches of the surface, putting down a one-inch layer of flexible material, and topping that with two inches of hot mix.

In a separate project, TxDOT also plans to resurface 12 miles of the northbound lanes of US 287 from Clarendon’s west city limit to the Armstrong County line. That project will cost an estimated $2.8 million and will go to bids in January.