Sinkhole Repairs Expedited: Goal of Christmas Day Completion

Updated: 6 p.m. Tuesday, more details about the project.

The city of Lafayette has moved to an expedited, round-the-clock work schedule on the Dec. 2 sinkhole collapse that seeks to have Mountain View Drive restored over Lafayette Creek by Christmas Day.

The city has signed a "time and materials" contract for $600,000 for the expedited work with C.C. Myers Inc., "California's leader in emergency response," in the words of Lafayette City Manager Steve Falk.

Falk said he had presented to the City Council last week a scenario in which repairs would go on into the spring before the drive was restored. "The City Council was not satisfied with that answer," Falk said. The city began pursuing an expedited solution with C.C. Myers Inc., based in Rancho Cordova, which worked on infrastructure repairs in Northridge after the 1994 earthquake and to the MacArthur Maze in Oakland after the tanker truck accident in 2007.

The $600,000 figure was negotiated, Falk said, and pertains to the "scope of the work as we understand it." Falk added that the work may not be finished by Christmas if the weather is exceptionally wet in the next two weeks.

There is now Visqueen plastic lining the creek at the sinkhole chasm to keep the banks from eroding, Falk said. A temporary dam is built on the creek with pumps that can send water through pipes downstream to bypass the chasm that cuts Mountain View Drive in two.

The permanent fix is move 10 concrete pipes, 12 feet in diameter, to form a high-capacity culvert, said Mark Beadleston, general superintendent for C.C. Myers Inc. Those pipes come in 8-foot sections that weigh 42,000 pounds each. Cranes had begun to move the pipe sections in place on Tuesday.

One local resident remains inconvenienced by the emergency work, Falk said. That is the family of Mike Anderson, elected as mayor of Lafayette by the City Council Monday night, —whose access to their driveway is blocked.

The city has circulated fliers in the neighborhood explaining the plans for the expedited repair.