Love the Bright Orange Road Construction Barrels? You’re in Luck!
February’s weather cost the Georgia DOT contractor two weeks of work on flyover ramps linking Interstate 85 to SR-400. Traffic on Cheshire Bridge Road and Lindbergh Drive will keep dodging construction barrels at least until April.
Loren Bartlett, DOT project manager, says the project continues to move as fast as possible because of financial penalties in the state contract with Archer Western.
“The contract calls for $1869 daily penalties,” she says, noting it was to be complete by January 14, 2014.
What about the two weeks when ice and snow kept Atlanta immobile?
The Department will consider inclement weather as
reason to be exempt from daily fines. The project construction budget is at $21 million. (AW’s contract is $21,423,500 for better accuracy.)
The nature trail along the creek is coming into clearer view as the ramps above are connected. By March 1 contractors laid beds of large stone along the creek, topping it with smaller gravel and compacting them into a smooth trail. The largest bridge across the main span of the North Fork is in place. Several smaller culverts across feeder creeks will be part of the trail. At least one is poured on site, and others are expected in early March. Decorative fences and approaches leading to the main bridge are likely to be among the last elements to be built.
The city of Atlanta, under the gun to meet a federal court-ordered consent decree deadline to substantially improve its wastewater management infrastructure, is trying a third time to build a massive storage tank somewhere near the confluence of the south and north forks of Peachtree Creek, but once again running into neighborhood concerns.
Neighbors turned out last week for a meeting at Rock Springs Presbyterian Church to find out more about the project and voice their concerns, which included security, odor, effect to property values, unsightliness, sewer gas odors and unforeseen problems.
They complained the community is “taking one for the team” by being unduly impacted with massive projects, including the Ga. 400 interchange, Clifton Corridor rail construction, Georgia Power Co. transmission lines — and now this water-management project.
“What is our neighborhood doing to get in exchange for this,” some asked.
The project is about 60 percent through the design stage and would include building one 10-million gallon, raised overflow tank off Cheshire Bridge Road at 2061 Liddell Drive. The tank would be about 55 feet tall and 185 feet wide, with a pumping station and electrical station on the flood plain at 2001 Cheshire Bridge Rd., near the north end of Lenox Road.
Plans call for tunneling diluted sewage overflow under Cheshire Bridge Road to the Liddell Road tank when the main system is overcapacity, which is usually about once a month, said EDT Waterworks principal engineer Donald Fry, who explained the project in a slideshow presentation.
By email, Lindbergh-Lavista Corridor Coalition board member Courtney Harkness said, “The City of Atlanta has a decision to make: Does it want to redevelop the Cheshire Bridge corridor or does it want to make the area an industrial dumping ground? If the City goes forward with this sewer project off of Cheshire Bridge Road, we will know what path they have chosen.”
Fry said the city needs to do something to protect the creeks and environment and that the city believes this is the best and most cost-effective way to do it.
The project is estimated to cost about $35 million.
“We selected the center of the only commercial and industrial area in the vicinity,” Fry said.
The project, sited on city-owned land, will effectively double the capacity of the current flow. He said the project is not foreseen to ever have more tanks, though he said the site is large enough for a second one.
The city initially planned to build the overflow tanks off Zonolite Road, then relocated the project off Kay Lane. Both locations were taken off the table after residents and business owners fought against building the project.
According to Sharon Matthews, senior watershed director for the city of Atlanta, to comply with the consent decree, the city must have construction completed in June 2014 and that construction would begin on this facility around the first of the year.
Harkness said the group is concerned the city’s 1999 Cheshire Bridge redevelopment plan would be jeopardized.
“This is the future Cheshire Bridge neighborhood, a multi-ethnic community that integrates open-air shopping, dining and entertainment with new residential development,” Harkness said. “A 55 ft. x 185 ft. sewer tank that will only be used, by the City’s estimation, for four to six hours each month to handle sewer overflow, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $40 million, does not jibe with this redevelopment plan at all.”
Area residents, who worked to get the City to develop this plan in 1999 and then again to get the City to rezone Cheshire Bridge Road to Neighborhood Commercial (NC) zoning in 2005, feel abandoned by the City and its leadership with the proposal of this sewer tank project, she said.
Matthews said the tank can be built with architectural features and landscaping so that it will not diminish the looks of the community.
Harkness said the community feels the “burden of achieving clean water is being ‘dumped’ on in this area of town, even though the issue affects a much larger area. They feel that other neighborhoods and jurisdictions (Buckhead, DeKalb County) that are affected by Peachtree Creek should also have to come to the table to solve this issue.”
“The only positive part of this project is that it (supposedly) will keep sewer run off out of Peachtree Creek,” Harkness said. “However, area residents feel that the burden of achieving clean water is being ‘dumped’ on this area of town, even though the issue affects a much larger area.”
An initial community meeting was cancelled last month “due to issues that have to be addressed with internal stakeholders.”
To read the entire article and add your comments, go to the Virginia-Highland/Druid Hills Patch by clicking on this link:
This graphic represents a similar tank system in Gwinnett County. Remember that DWM is proposing two of these on the Liddell Drive site. This tank is painted with a forest scene to help disguise it.
The City of Atlanta (COA) Department of Watershed Management (DWM) is planning on building an overflow sewage capacity system in the Lindridge Martin Manor and Morningside Lenox Park neighborhoods. DWM plans to locate two 10-12 million gallon tanks which will stand 15-30 feet above ground on their property at 2061 Liddell Drive NE, off Cheshire Bridge Road behind Barking Hound Village MAP . The mechanicals i.e. pumping station, electrical station etc. will be located on the flood plain property at 2001 Cheshire Bridge Road NE MAP which is currently owned by Salem Broadcasting where the transmission towers are located.
In the event of overcapacity in the main trunk, a tunneled pipe would carry diluted sewage overflow under Cheshire Bridge Road through active pumping to the above ground tanks on the Liddell property, and as capacity in the main trunk dissipated, would then release the overflow back into the main trunk through gravity flow.
This graphic represents the possible coverage of any odor discharge, based on prevailing wind patterns of southwest to northeast. Plans do call for odor control measures to be put into place. Click image to enlarge.
Despite its COA location, given the direction of prevailing winds there is the potential for impact in neighboring DeKalb County as well. To learn more, plan to attend a public meeting hosted by DWM on Wednesday, May 30th at 6:30 pm at Rock Springs Presbyterian Church located at 1824 Piedmont Avenue NE MAP .
The Environmental Protection Agency will test for toxic lead residue in Morningside and other Atlanta neighborhoods surrounding a former lead-smelting factory, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
At 740 Lambert Drive N.E., near Cheshire Bridge and Piedmont, the Metalico Evans factory processed 5,000 tons of lead a year from 1935 until the mid-1990s. Until 1977, it operated without air pollution control devices.
The factory was replaced by a cement plant in 2003. Bulldozers leveled the buildings and scraped away the soil before the cement company took ownership.
But for several decades lead dust would have left the factory chimneys to drift over the thousands of residences in the nearby Lindbergh, Cheshire Bridge and Morningside neighborhoods.
Lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates in the body and can cause brain damage, reduced intelligence, developmental problems, stunted growth, seizures and death. Lead dust can drift three to five miles from a factory source.
Inquiries about the defunct factory from a reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2009 led to an EPA assessment of the risks posed by fallout and runoff. This month, USA Today published the results of a yearlong investigation into hundreds of similar “ghost factories” around the country, mentioning three Atlanta facilities.
The EPA’s assessment and a subsequent analysis, completed in March, caused enough concern to warrant the additional soil tests, EPA officials said. At the Lambert Drive site, the EPA found soil with lead concentrations above the 400 parts-per-million considered safe by the agency, but no sampling was done outside the boundaries of the factory site.
The preliminary analysis “assumes a release [of lead dust] exists,” EPA Region 4 spokesman James Pinkney said in a written statement. Pinkney said the EPA is developing a plan to sample the soil in residential yards around the former factory, and the soil of waterways that drain the area. That sampling will begin this summer, he said.
The EPA declined requests for a phone interview to discuss in greater detail the potential for contamination and the history of the agency’s actions to safeguard residents.
The agency has not yet alerted residents of neighborhoods around the plant about any potential hazard in their soil. Several told the AJC they were unaware that a lead factory ever existed nearby.
“Nobody’s mentioned it,” said Dot Marrinson, 91, who has lived in Morningside since 1963.
Rich Sussman, a retired National Parks Service executive, who’s lived and gardened in the area since 1974, said he had no inkling there was a smelting factory less than a mile from his house. “I never knew it was there.”
There were at least two other sites in Atlanta where lead apparently was processed, both owned by the Miller Metal Co. One was in a spot now occupied by the Williams Street exit from the Downtown Connector. The other was in an area on downtown’s Decatur Street that became the Grady Homes housing project, owned by the Atlanta Housing Authority.
When the apartments at Grady Homes were slated for demolition in 2006 to make way for redevelopment, the EPA suggested that the housing authority conduct further testing at the property.
The AHA removed a few thousand tons of contaminated soil in 2008, before transforming the area into a mixed-use apartment community called Ashley at Auburn Pointe, according to AHA spokesman Rick White.
When it settles to the ground, lead tends to bind with bare soil, according to Marsha Black, associate professor in environmental health science at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health. It poses a special danger to growing children who might play in the dirt and then put dirty hands or dirty toys in their mouths.
Local and federal environmental officials “should have done a lot more in the last few years” to inform residents about the area’s history, said Colleen Kiernan, director of the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club. “If credible evidence demonstrates that people are at risk, there should be some path toward addressing the problem,” she said.
Based on its investigation to date, the EPA has raised concerns about possible waterborne lead contamination. The Lambert Drive property drains into the south fork of Peachtree Creek, and from there into the Chattahoochee River. Lead dust that washed off the property would have ended up in the creek sediment, and possibly been ingested by any of the dozens of fish species that live there.
The EPA’s report pointed out that fishermen catch many of those fish, and that some anglers consume what they catch.
Sussman also sometimes makes a supper from his backyard bounty of radishes, lettuce, carrots, beets and basil. A Master Gardener, he’s had his soil tested many times — for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. But not for lead.
He never thought it necessary.
He still doubts there’s any need. But he’d like to know.
Staff writer Craig Schneider contributed to this article.
A plan to link two major nature preserves in Virginia-Highland and Morningside is gaining momentum in the neighborhood.
The South Fork Conservancy and Park Pride are leading discussions about a trail along the south fork of Peachtree Creek connecting Morningside Nature Preserve and Herbert Taylor-Daniel Johnson Nature Preserve.
The first public meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 10 at 6 p.m. at Haygood Methodist Church could demonstrate some of the benefits and challenges of creating more greenspace with easy access to walkers, joggers and perhaps bikers.
Creek cleanups and trail building are expected later in the spring.
Here’s what one avid creek paddler found on a cleanup downstream from Cheshire Bridge Road.
From Richard Grove, Georgia Kayaker:
There are good river days and there are great river days. Today was a great one. Today after 9.5 hours, 25 more tires were removed along with 3 shopping carts, some carpet, a picnic table umbrella, 3 golf balls, mirror, fishing reel, vehicle tail light lens, sleeping bag, trash can lid, PVC pipe, wire, metal stud, shoes, shirts, roof shingles, safety fence, silt fence, fire extinguisher, lots of aluminum cans, plastic bags & bottles, a disposable razor. Still looking for a toothbrush. The pile is huge. Next work day will be from Cheshire Bridge Road.
I have never removed a Herbie trash container or a shopping cart from the river. I thought the Herbie was a bear to get out but nothing compared to the shopping carts which took more than an hour to dig each one out.
One day next week I will cut up the tree in the river across from the trash pile area which will make the river look much better from that view point.
I see and hear people walking the trail when I am in the river working but the only chance I get to talk to anyone is when I’m either starting or finishing and at my truck.. When I was cleaning in the area of the trash pile several people came to the riverbank to say, hello. Sunday I met a couple who walk the trail several times a week.
A year from now there will probably be less trash in the river but more on the trail. Fact-of-life, Americans are pigs. Where they go so come their trash.
Sally Sears is the Executive Director of the South Fork Conservancy, a nonprofit that seeks to restore, conserve and protect the Riparian systems of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek Watershed. Follow South Fork on Facebook. Learn more on their website.
by Jane P. Rawlings, LLCC Transportation Coordinator
MARTA Planning staff has completed the review of community feedback and technical analysis and have finalized a recommended locally preferred alternative (LPA) for the Clifton Corridor. The LPA is the alternative that, based on technical analysis and stakeholder input, would most effectively address the needs of the corridor and goals and objectives of the project.
The recommended LPA includes 8.8 miles of new light rail transit (LRT) service connecting the Lindbergh MARTA Station to the Emory/Clifton Corridor and beyond to the Avondale MARTA Station. The recommendation for the locally preferred alternative includes several tunnels and one of those tunnels extends from an area west of Lenox Road to an area just west of Briarcliff Road.
MARTA Planning staff will present the LPA recommendation to the MARTA Planning and External Relations Committee on March 26 at 10:00 a.m. and to the MARTA Board on April 9 at 1:30 p.m. There will be a public comment period prior to the Board meeting only. Both meetings will be held at:
MARTA Headquarters, 6th Floor Board Room, 2424 Piedmont Road, Atlanta, GA 30324.
Upon MARTA Board approval, the agency will present the LPA to the Atlanta Regional Commission for adoption and incorporation into the long-range transportation plan. Afterwards, the LPA will be advanced through the next step in the federal project development process which is the completion of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). This study will go into much more detailed level of analysis as compared to the Alternatives Analysis (AA).
The Lindbergh LaVista Corridor Coalition (LLCC) in conjunction with the Morningside Lenox Park Association (MLPA), and the Woodland Hills Neighborhood Association (WHNA) hired Heather Alhadeff, Senior Transportation Planner with Perkins + Will, to assist us in disseminating information to the public, collecting this input, and preparing a formal document for inclusion in the AA. This document which includes a summary along with all results and comments from our surveys is included. To view this report click HERE. Inclusion in the report best positions our communities in the federal process moving forward.
The Fact Sheet recently released by MARTA has concerned some in our community as it did not mention tunneling of the project or a Morningside station. The purpose of a Fact Sheet is to comment ONLY on the alignment and technology preferences for the project. It is not intended to address the project in great detail. For this type of information one will have to review the study document. I have reached out to Jason Morgan, Project Manager, for the CCTI requesting additional summary details regarding the second segment (from Cheshire Bridge to Briarcliff) as I have received emails with questions. I share below his comments in an effort to address some of these matters and provide clarity to the public.
Email correspondence from Jason Morgan, Project Manager MARTA:
The fact sheet that has been distributed does not preclude the tunnel. The tunnel is part of the proposal. In fact, there are three tunnels that are included with the proposal. The second and third tunnels are further east along the alignment. The fact sheet is not intended to go into the details regarding where every tunnel or elevated structure is located. We have other materials which illustrate the specific station concepts and tunnel proposals. We have done our best to balance the comments from members of the community throughout the entire project corridor with our best technical analysis. The LLCC report has provided valuable insight into the perspective of residents in this section of the corridor, but the project team must consider cost and potential construction issues as well.
With that said:
A bored light rail tunnel is proposed to run parallel to and beneath the northside of CSX right-of-way.
The tunnel depth will be a minimum of 55 feet. The specifics of the tunnel design will be determined during the Environmental Impact Study which has been targeted to begin later this year.
Specific impacts and compensation are quantified during the Environmental Impact Study and in accordance with guidelines identified within the National Environmental Policy Act. Keep in mind, this corridor is 8.8 miles long and most of the potential impacts or displacements we can estimate at this stage are in areas where the alignment is above ground.
While a station at Lenox Road was requested to be examined, ultimately many residents expressed trepidation about having a station close to their homes. In addition, there was a significant additional estimated cost associated with building a subway station at this location. The suggestion from attendees at the October 25 meeting as well via many comments was to add a walking trail that would connect Lenox Road to the station at Cheshire Bridge. This trail could be integrated with the South Fork of Peachtree Creek trail as well as others.
Revised station concepts and alignment concepts are currently being updated to the project website (www.itsmarta.com/clifton-corr.aspx). MARTA hopes to have everything activated by later this week.
Barrier walls were due to go up Tuesday at the interchange of Interstate 85 and Georgia 400 in Buckhead, marking the start of a long-anticipated reconstruction project.
Contractors working for the Georgia Department of Transportation will build ramps that will let southbound motorists on 400 connect with northbound I-85 and southbound drivers on I-85 connect to 400 northbound.
Those ramps were not included when the interchange was built in the early 1990s.
“We are excited to get this project under way,” DOT District Engineer Bryant Poole said. “When it is completed, I think the public will be very pleased with the final product, as we get some congestion relief for the arterial roads in the area.”
No lane closures will be necessary in the early stages of the work. Later, lane closures will be permitted only during evenings and weekends.
The DOT awarded a $21.5 million contract for the project last year to Atlanta-based Archer Western Contractors Ltd. The project is due to be completed by the end of next year.
Invitation to explore a meadow in winter — it’s a newly created trail through a long-ignored slice of Midtown, beside Peachtree Creek and Interstate 85. Popular tours of the trails last week gave dogs, owners and neighbors a walk in nature.
The neighbors and the South Fork Conservancy are carving a new vision for caring for our intown creeks. Simple trails through the landscape beside the south and north forks encourage people to walk their dogs, breathe deeply and re-discover big hardwoods hiding in plain sight on public land. This meadow is interstate right of way, next to a neighborhood with almost no accessible greenspace.
Two years of cooperation helped to build this mulch trail, weaving along the creek and through a meadow of wild flowers and grasses. Neighbors hope to connect the trails under the interstate to the Morningside Nature Preserve, Zonolite Park and then to the Herbert Taylor-Daniel Johnson Nature Preserve.
If you want to walk it, the trail head is just across the guard rail at Lindbergh Drive and I-85. On street parking available at Lindbergh Drive and Armand Road.
Sally Sears is the Executive Director of thr South Fork Conservancy, a nonprofit that seeks to restore, conserve and protect the Riparian systems of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek Watershed. This article appeared in the Virginia Highland/North Druid Hills Patch on January 11, 2012.
Next Sunday, November 20th at 9am, Generation Green and South Fork Conservancy will partner to clean-up trails, build benches and plant trees at Peachtree Creek in Atlanta. The trail clean-up area is located near the intersection of Lindbergh Drive and Armand Road. Volunteers are asked to register for this event, to wear boots and bring gloves.
Generation Green is a program of the Georgia Conservancy creating “exciting and inclusive” opportunities for future generations of environmental leaders who will protect Georgia’s environment. The program uses educational opportunities, social events, adventure trips and service projects as mediums of engagement.
South Fork Conservancy is a volunteer organization of neighbors and businesses with an aim at sustaining Atlanta’s creeks and quality of life. The organization is the beginning part of an initiative aimed at restoring, and repairing Peachtree Creek to its “rightful place in the forefront of the region’s natural resources.”
For directions, and registration information for this event, click here.
By Eden Landow for Virginia-Highland/Druid Hills Patch
Neighborhood groups involved in planning for a MARTA expansion through the Clifton Corridor say residents are worried they might not be adequately compensated for their property or that the right-of-way would extend virtually to their doorsteps and harm their quality of life.
Planning consultant Heather Alhadeff, who has been hired by Lindbergh LaVista Corridor Coalition Inc. to aid in the communication process, discusses the proposals with LLCC board member Rosalie Townsend, former LLCC president Henry Batten and NPU-F chairwoman and LLCC transportation coordinator Jane Rawlings. Credit Eden Landow
The public got another chance Wednesday night to comment on a proposed $1 billion project to expand MARTA rail through the Clifton corridor and link Lindbergh Center with Emory, the CDC, Decatur and Avondale.
The latest configuration proposes heavy rail, including some underground tracks, from Lindbergh Center to the intersection of Clairmont and North Decatur roads and then light rail or bus rapid to the Avondale MARTA station. Three possibilities were detailed among the presentations up for comment.
Jason Morgan, MARTA
Jason Morgan, regional planner for MARTA and project manager for the Clifton Corridor Transit Initiative, said Wednesday night’s Station Area Planning and Alignment Workshop, held at Torah Day School of Atlanta, concludes the public meetings that will be held during the Alternative Analysis phase of the project development process.
“It’s important that people’s concerns are documented at this stage so they can be flagged for inclusion in the environmental process and then we can be ready to mitigate them,” Morgan said.
Three previous formal public-input meetings were held, including this one, two last year and one in May. In addition, several community meetings have been held, including one called by the Lindbergh LaVista Corridor Coalition on July 12 that was attended by more than 200 people.
Planners had explored at-grade options including light rail and bus rapid transit and to utilize the CSX right-of-way, but neighborhood concerns, development density and refusal by CSX to share their space, open up the possibility for subterranean tracks.
Rather than blasting, Morgan said, builders would use a tunnel-boring machine.
“We want to avoid the ‘cut-and-cover’ method, which involves a lot of disruption, which is what we’re trying to avoid,” he said.
LLCC and Lenox Park/Morningside have hired consultant Perkins+Will’s Urban Design practice and their senior transportation planner, Heather Alhadeff, to assist them in getting their concerns heard.
“I am here to coordinate, advise and manage the dialogue between MARTA and their partner, CCTMA, and the neighborhoods,” said Aldaheff, “to communicate things in a meaningful, understandable and productive way, in both directions.”
MARTA and CCTMA boards are expected to vote in November on the proposal, which would send the process to the environmental stage, during which historic and ecological studies would be made, as well as impact studies on what effect would be felt by property owners. Once the environmental stage is cleared, the process moves on to preliminary engineering and then the final design stage.
All four stages of the development process must include public input as well as local and federal approval, Morgan said.
On Thursday, the Atlanta Regional Roundtable’s executive committee meets to adopt a list of transit priorities in the Atlanta region, which will be reviewed and approved by the full roundtable before going to voters as part of the statewide referendum in July or November called the Transportation Investment Act.
“We are trying to position the project so that it will qualify for any federal funds that might be available,” Morgan said, “regardless of what happens with TIA.”
This part of MARTA’s planning process began in 2009. Construction is likely to take upwards of 10 years, unless TIA passes, in which case, Morgan said, the process would speed up by a year or even two.
On one side of the room were posters and flipcharts for community comments on MARTA proposals for heavy rail from Lindbergh Center, through the Emory campus to the intersection of North Decatur and Clairmont roads, then bus rapid transit (BRT) or light rail (LRT) along Scott Boulevard and then to the Avondale MARTA station. Linking to the Decatur MARTA station, for the moment, appeared to be off the table.
Also off the table seemed to be utilizing the right-of-way held by CSX railroad, though one of the planners at the meeting speculated that, once funding is identified and the project moves closer to being a reality, that the company might be willing to discuss the possibility.
On the other side of the room were placards describing how the stations might be designed for optimal entrance and access and amenities.
“We’re trying to find the right balance between having stations placed far enough apart that the trains can move faster, yet making sure we have enough stations so that people can get where they need to go,” Morgan said.
Ridership estimates were included on the posters, indicating that in 2030 about 27,000 “boardings,” or the number of people getting on the train at any given station along the way, each would be expected for heavy rail, about 17,000 for light rail and about 11,000 for bus rapid transit.
“None of the expansion projects could be done the way things are structured now,” said MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris. “Federal funds require that operating funds be available. The current ’50-50′ funding structure probably needs to be revisited.”
Also attending the meeting was DeKalb Commissioner Jeff Rader, who said he did not feel he had a direct role in this portion of the process but that these types of improvements could substantially reduce automobile traffic in his district and the impact of the traffic.
Later, he said, the DeKalb Commission would likely weigh in on land use and development proposals along the corridor.
“I haven’t heard anyone here say that we don’t need transit,” Rader said. “It’s just a matter of how we can get there.”
MARTA also is in the alternatives analysis phase of an expansion plan for an I-20 East Corridor to serve south DeKalb.
February’s weather cost the Georgia DOT contractor two weeks of work on flyover ramps linking Interstate 85 to SR-400. Traffic on Cheshire Bridge Road and Lindbergh Drive will keep dodging construction barrels at least until April.
The Corridor - Lindbergh Lavista 501c3 Nonprofit 