Work Continues on Station Plaza Flooding Project

If one person knows how difficult it has been for commuters in the Station Plaza area surrounding the , it is village superintendent of public works Tom Rini.

“Unfortunately to do a job like this you have to close down the parking lot,” he said during the May 16 meeting of the at the . “We tried to mitigate that by just closing parking field No. 1 first and then we’ll but unfortunately in order to get this type of work done we need a bit of room and I have ti displace people.”

The current construction relates to a project with the installation of drainage wells. However, the amount and the size of the wells is a bit disruptive. The five large drainage pool wells are 10 ft. diameter by 20 ft. deep, requiring a 25-27 ft. deep hole. According to Rini, the diffusion wells have been installed at Station Plaza in parking field No. 1. Field number 7 is next to be reconstructed.

Once completed and an interconnected pipe installed, the village would make a basic roadway through field No. 7 to the south apron to the Winthrop parking lot to funnel traffic in order to close the rest of parking field No. 7 “and not adversely affect the deliveries of oxygen, the pickup of garbage as well as the people that do park in their garages and give them a way to get out,” Rini said.

Rini said that the subsurface appears to be comprised of “very fine” drainage material which will aid in removing water from the area and the village will be able to use a lot of that material, putting it back around the wells and saving money along the way. He stated that a change order for the savings would be forthcoming at a future board meeting.

“We’ve converted a couple things and we’re actually probably saved a bit more money in doing so but we’re working up the costs on that,” he said.

The original design for the project called for a dome top whereas the village went with a flat one due to the material in the ground, thus reducing excavation.

The parking lot asphalt bed “was not good material” Rini noted, adding that he anticipates having to create a subgrade in order to properly reconstruct the lot.

The estimated time for the project is 60 days, with completion slated for early July.

While the operators on the job site are members of local union No. 138, he contractor is nonunion, which has drawn protests at the site, though no reported disruptions.

The construction job is known as a prevailing wage job which requires that a contractor – union or not – pay their employees, operators, laborers, etc. the New York State prevailing wage.  All village public works contracts are prevailing wage.

“That doesn’t preclude a nonunion contractor from coming in to do so,” Rini said. “As such, if you have nonunion operators and the union hears about it, they come down.”

He noted that the union has been cooperative and a space has been created for them to demonstrate as is the union’s civil right.

“They don’t have a right to obstruct traffic, they don’t have a right to create problems down there and they’ve been cooperative,” Rini said. “They haven’t tried to obstruct the work being done.”