Saga of Read Avenue continues in Dewey

With the cause of continued bayside flooding at a three-valve outfall system on Read Avenue in Dewey Beach still undetermined, town leaders have expressed frustration with the engineering and construction firms contracted to do the work.

At the July 19 town council meeting, Commissioner David Jasinski reported on the previous day’s infrastructure meeting. The vendor said the flaps were installed correctly on the tidal gates, Jasinski said, but a committee member said water is coming from the bay through the flaps or a pipe leak.

“The best way to put it is, the saga of Read Avenue continues, unfortunately,” Jasinski said.

In January, Town Manager Bill Zolper stated that some time ago, steel valves were removed from the outfall system, resulting in worse flooding. The town contracted with Remington & Vernick Engineers in November to install plastic valves on the outfalls for $52,000; the work was completed in May, Zolper said.

At the July 18 infrastructure meeting, Chris Fazio of RVE said the flap valves have been kept clean of sand and debris, and he was going with the assumption that they work, although the town said flooding is the same.

Fazio recommended the town hire a contractor to televise the three outfall pipes to see if they are defective and need to be relined. The junction box may have holes that can be sprayed and sealed to be watertight, he said. A diver can assess the pipes and junction box, he said.

Committee member Phil Winkler said the gates have failed in every high tide over 2 feet since they were installed. Winkler said he measured the gravity of the water in the street and found the water in the pipe has the same gravity as the baywater, indicating saline and contamination coming through the pipes.

Fazio said he believed Winkler would get the same results from groundwater flowing into a pipe, with which Winkler disagreed. “Those gates do not work,” Winkler said.

When workers were installing the flaps in May, a crew supervisor said they wouldn’t work and expressed frustration when trying to put them on, Zolper said. 

The crew had removed the grate off the concrete box that captures water before it goes out the pipes to the bay, Zolper said. They were pumping water out of the box and had a camera they were going to send down after they drained the water, he said, but the generator stopped working. The senior person got frustrated, they packed up, left and never came back, Zolper said.

Zolper said he was told by Fazio that that work was not in the contract, but he thinks the crew was trying to see if the flaps really work or are leaking. The crew also left three holes on the top of the three pipes, which they did come back to epoxy and duct-tape, Zolper said, and the epoxy on one hole has split open.

Speaking via Zoom, RVE subcontractor Jonathan Bacher said the water may be seeping from surrounding rip rap. The crew had some extra time to see if something was there, he said, so they tried to video what was between the junction box and pipes. This was a free service they decided to do but could not complete the dewatering, Bacher said. Flaps were installed correctly and should work, he said.

Bacher said the crew did in fact come back to the site to return it to its original condition. They didn’t complete the camera work because it was outside the job scope and they had already given the town a tremendous discount, Bacher said.

When Jasinski said he felt there was more behind the supervisor’s comment that the flaps would not work, Committee Chair Drew Martin said he agreed, asking why they would go to the hassle to perform a job not in the scope of work when they’re already complaining about a low price. They did it for a reason, he said.

Zolper said he and the town maintenance supervisor can perform a test to plug the pipe coming from Coastal Highway to the junction box and all three pipes to see if water comes in at high tide, but right now he is very frustrated by a lot of negative comments from the crew working on the job.