As Maine Department of Transportation officials explained a rapid process to address a two-mile stretch of Route 136 damaged by heavy rains in Durham and one dire mile that will hopefully be reopened by Thanksgiving, members of the public who attended a public meeting in the town’s fire station Tuesday learned nine properties will be impacted by the project involving one mile of construction north of Snow Road.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced July 13 that the U.S. Department of Transportation agreed to provide $500,000 in emergency federal highway funds to repair the damage. The senator’s press release cited a total project repair cost as high as $2.5 million.

Brad Foley, highway program manager for MDOT, summarized the project details for those who attended the meeting. Unlike the normal project process that involves more public input, the Route 136 project’s immediate need for repair has forced MDOT to react, he said, and representatives Tuesday were there to tell the public what they will be doing to repair the damage that has left part of Route 136 reduced to one lane.

“As I’m sure you all know there is a section of road that is down to one lane,” Foley said. “We had a failure of the slope and our investigations led us to actually close down one lane for safety reasons. With that, we took a look at the whole situation. We’ve identified two miles that are of concern through this area and one mile basically from Snow Road north that is of utmost concern, meaning that we need to get to it right away.”

Foley said when MDOT recently repaired a section of Route 136 in Auburn, the road was shut down and traffic detoured. “That’s not what we want to do this time around. We don’t want to shut down this road. We know it’s important to a lot of people. It’s important to commerce, it’s important to commuters, and our goal is to keep the road open. We’re keenly aware that a strong hurricane or some sort of event could lead us to shut down the road down.”

Denis Lovely, the project manager, said basically the MDOT members were at Tuesday’s meeting to talk about the mile from the Snow Road northerly almost to the Stackpole Road. That’s the section of road where MDOT has temporary traffic lights set up and the road reduced to one lane, “and we’re afraid the road’s going to fail.”

“Right now, our plans are to hopefully have it ready to bid the first of August, award (the bid) sometime in late August, and begin work after Labor Day,” Lovely continued. “With Mother Nature’s help, we’re not going to close the road down. We’re actually moving the new road 50 to 60 feet south of the current location of the old road. That will allow us to keep this road open and build a new road.”

But installation of two large concrete pipes will require MDOT to close down the road at one point. When it’s time, MDOT expects to close the road on a Friday night at 6 p.m. and have it open by 6 a.m. the following Monday.

The new road will be approximately two feet higher than the existing road, Lovely said, to eliminate unnecessary road closures during heavy flooding.

“Our goal is to have the new road in and the base pavement and the binder pavement on before Thanksgiving,” Lovely said. Pointing to a diagram hanging in front of the room, “Then we would go to work on this slope,” to be completed by March 1. The MDOT will be back in May or June to put the finish surface layer on the pavement.

The MDOT will excavate from the river level up to the new road, Lovely said. From the river up to two feet above the normal high water level, there will be heavy riprap consisting of 500- to 1,000-pound rocks. Smaller rocks will be placed from the heavy riprap to the roadside.

The department’s right of way appraisal supervisor Luther Yonce said he has called for appraisals on all nine properties with eight appraisals remaining.

“There is a house, right here, that will not be there very shortly,” Yonce said, pointing to a large aerial map of the Route 136 project area.

Within a week or two an appraiser should be getting in contact with the eight property owners to conduct appraisals. He hopes within the next four to five weeks the appraiser will complete appraisal reports and the MDOT will review and put together its offers.

Because federal funds are involved, Yonce told residents that specific rules are in play regarding rights of way. In play are slope easements, drainage easements and additional fee acquisitions. The hope is that the transfer of rights will occur in early October. Yonce said owners of the eight properties impacted will be offered a financial incentive in exchange for granting early entry onto their property, Yonce said, to accommodate the project timeline.

One resident of Stackpole Road said residents of the road “had a horrible problem with traffic,” that rose from hundreds to thousands of vehicles speeding, during the Route 136 closure last construction season, adding she’d like to see much more enforcement on the road.

Foley said “it is a matter of law enforcement. We can’t enforce the speeds.”

Another resident said, “I’m one of the property owners that’s going to have the Durham speedway continue about 50, 60 feet closer to my home. … One of my big concerns is 15, 20 years from now you’re going to be taking possibly some more of our property later or my heirs will have to move the house. Is there a way to fix the river now without having to take this homeowner’s property?”

Foley answered that the design is a 75- to 100-year design, though it can be hard to estimate how long it will last using geotechnical information, “but we’ve gotten very conservative with our design and that’s why we are moving 50 feet back,” and using the heavy riprap and riprap up the slope.

“We could do some other things that might save us a little bit of money, but we don’t have time to figure those things out right now. We know that that’s going to work and that’s going to stabilize the slope.”

Property owners were invited to stay after the meeting to talk about their properties relative to the project.

dmoore@timesrecord.com