‘Serious deterioration’ on culvert under I-86

By Matt Freeze, Senior Staff Writer, Morning Times —

A culvert under State Route 17/Future I-86 has been flagged as a concern for a few years now, but village officials remain unsure how to fix the problem.

According to NYSDOT’s large culvert inventory, the structure, which leads under the highway to the village’s $20 million wastewater treatment plant, received a 2 out of 7 on its inspection rating scale.

That scale indicates that a rating of 2 is used to “shade between” ratings of “serious deterioration or not functioning as originally designed” and “totally deteriorated or potentially hazardous.”

Village Trustee Laura Spencer said the culvert was at what’s considered a “yellow flag” stage, which, if degraded to red, the village would have to monitor the culvert with weekly inspections – and would be under more pressure to fix the deterioration.

The culvert was last inspected on Sept. 3, 2024.

To fully replace the culvert, Spencer said the estimated cost is between $7 million and $10 million.

The wastewater treatment plant was built in 1964, three years before the highway was constructed in 1967.

At that time, a resolution was passed by the Village of Owego trustees stating that all maintenance costs and responsibilities for the dry culvert would belong to the village.

Apart from the highway component, which handles heavy traffic through the area, the culvert’s existing size has been presenting issues for village employees, as it is too small for larger modern vehicles to fit through the tunnel.

Spencer said at a January meeting that DOT officials indicated the best thing the village could do to stop deterioration is to repave the bottom of the culvert to help reduce further rainwater damage.

However, this wouldn’t solve the village’s issue of getting sewage haulers or fire trucks to the plant.

When improvements were made in recent years at the facility, Spencer said a nearby creek was blocked off, and trucks had to drive through the dry creek bed and under existing highway bridges in order to get to the plant.

In the event of a fire at the plant, Trustee Ron Pelton said the fire department would have to try to shoot water from Southside Drive over both eastbound and westbound lanes of the highway.

Spencer said there are existing emergency safety plans in the event of a flood or other hazards, but for fire suppression, Pelton’s suggestion would likely be the only option.

The village has explored options other than increasing the size of the culvert, Spencer said, but their preferred method is not allowed by DOT, which maintains the federal interstate.

Ideally, trustees would like to see emergency access from I-86 westbound by installing a shoulder with a gated fence entrance to the plant.

“It’s not that there’s not enough enter and exit room – they just won’t allow them because it’s an interstate,” Spencer said.

Spencer said that it’s not in the state’s long-term transportation improvement plan to “replace and right-size the culvert,” which could cost up to $10 million — making it a financial responsibility of the village.

Spencer also said there was some hope that awarded FEMA funds for hazard mitigation could be used for the issue, but federal funding was cut and clawed back from the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program from the village’s budget in 2023.

One recommendation from DOT, according to Spencer, is the building of a separate bridge across the Susquehanna River, but that is not considered feasible.

“Losing the federal government assistance means that the village officials are on our own to solve the issue,” Spencer said.

Asked for comment on the culvert deterioration, DOT Region 9 Public Information Specialist Dan Scharfenberger said: “NYSDOT engineers inspect this dry culvert in the Village of Owego once a year. … It is safe for the traveling public. All questions about any future projects related to a replacement culvert should be directed to the Village of Owego.”

Scharfenburger did not say whether the next phase of major highway work along the I-86 corridor would include this culvert section.