Updated 4/9
Tisbury banned a contractor from using Beach Street Extension to run a pump hose out to the harbor Thursday until steps were taken to lessen the impact of the contractor’s bridge over a hose at Five Corners and until indemnification documentation was provided.
Thursday night the contractor expanded the bridge by adding more interlocking pieces, making passage over it less bumpy. Adam Guaraldi, a senior project geologist for Corporate Environmental Advisors, a company involved with the project, said on Friday vehicles should cross the bridge slowly as speed exacerbates the bumpiness. He said most vehicles should have no trouble passing over the bridge but cars modified to ride low or cars with low air dams could experience problems.
Vehicles slowly traversed the Lego-like bridge Thursday, some of them scraping bottom. The lower the vehicle sat the worse it seemed to fare on the bridge. Friday saw vehicles pass with less struggle but impacts were still evident. The propeller of a towed boat struck the asphalt after clearing the bridge.
Tisbury town administrator Jay Grande, DPW director Kirk Mettel and select board chair Jim Rogers visited the jobsite midday Friday where the contractor is at work preparing XtraMart’s Citgo gas station property on Beach Road for underground gas tanks. The job will require water to be pumped away.
Grande told The Times he needs a document indemnifying the town before the contractor can be permitted to pump water down Beach Road Extension. While standing just beyond the fencing around the jobsite, Rogers told Guaraldi he wanted that document by 4pm. He also said he wanted assurance hose bridges and ramps on sidewalks were ADA compliant.
Rogers began criticizing the hose bridge Thursday. Run across Beach Road by Five Corners, it’s essentially a raised yellow ramp to protect pump hose from vehicles. When holes are dug for the new tanks, water will be pumped through mobile filtration equipment, along beach road and across it, down beach road extension, and into Vineyard Haven Harbor. On Thursday evening Rogers said the bridge was laid out in such a way that vehicles routinely bottomed-out. Rogers said he wanted the hose bridge modified to be less impactful. He also said the contractor was supposed to provide Tisbury with a letter or instrument of indemnification and with proof of insurance and allegedly hasn’t. The select board approved the elaborate setup with those conditions at a meeting last month.
The Citgo station got permission from the state and town to use the above-the-ground hose to pump groundwater to the harbor because the drainage system on Beach Road is hopelessly clogged. Rogers emphasized that until the contractor meets the conditions agreed to by Citgo, town property such as Beach Road Extension, is off limits. Rogers said the town has less influence over state roadways such as Beach Road. He said he insisted on a police detail — one the contractor pays for. That detail was by the Bridge Thursday night. As soon as the police departed, some time around 1pm, Guaraldi said a person purposefully spun their tires on the bridge. He asked that motorists refrain from doing that as it dislodges sections of the bridge and shifts the hose.
Updated with new information.
