“Never seen ground conditions this bad”, is the claim of a 50 year ground works veteran, according to the project manager in charge of Foster’s Nelson Street upgrade.
The project manager, ACE Earthmoving’s Josh Taylor, told the Prom Coast News, “We’ve got machines on site that are built to not get bogged but we’re pulling them out 20 times a day so it’s been an uphill battle.”
The problem lies with the subsurface of the street which was built on silty clay similar to that of a dried lake bed. According to Michael Heal of the Foster & District Historical Society, “In the early part of the 20th century, it was pretty standard to see this area underwater”.
It’s not known exactly when, but “the shire piped this waterway to overcome the flooding, but over hundreds of years, many stilts must have been deposited on the ground. Nelson Street might have been a low point in the landscape”, Mr Heal continued.
The extent of the problem caused by the historical wetlands to the upgrade of Nelson Street is typified by just how far down ACE Earthmoving have had to dig.
“We were only supposed to do 450 mil (millimetre) lift of stabilisation but because the ground has been so poor, it’s about two metres deep, so we’ve had major issues with ground conditions,” claimed Mr Taylor.
The team have resorted to a cement and lime mixture in order to take the moisture out of the soil and make the ground stable in order for the road to be laid on top.
But it is the spoil from these materials being blown across local properties that is causing some residents to complain, with one claiming it to be an “environmental disaster”, and that at least one resident is housebound due to her asthma.
“I hadn’t heard about the health problems but would gladly meet up with anyone concerned about what’s happening”, said ACE Earthmoving’s Mr Taylor. “We’re doing all we can to get the work done as soon as possible but there are only a certain number of hours in a day.
“Work comes to a halt on the windiest of days to mitigate the amount of dust produced”, he added.
South Gippsland Shire Council’s Interim CEO, Allison Jones, said in a statement, “Nelson Street Foster is being reconstructed as part of Council’s Sealed Road Rehabilitation Program. The work is being undertaken in response to pavement failures, community feedback and road condition data, which indicated that the old road pavement had reached the end of its useful life.”
Ms Jones continued, “Despite the challenge of very poor ground conditions encountered during the works, Council has timed the sensitive pavement works to occur during the drier summer months and the project is on track to be completed before winter.”
ACE Earthmoving’s Josh Taylor said that the team had been working extra hours to get the project finished on time.”“We came back a week early after Christmas and we’ve been doing 15 hour days for the past few weeks and working weekends to get on top of things.”
The discovery of an asbestos watermain, a South Gippsland Water (SGW) asset, has not helped.
“It kept on breaking because it was so brittle, so SGW had to come in and replace it and run a whole new watermain for a certain part of the job, which held up our construction work”, continued Mr Taylor. SGW’s works were not completed until early March.
“We’ve had major issues with ground conditions that have held us up quite a bit but I’m still pushing. Once we’ve got this stabilised, all that dirt will be off the side of the street and into the pavement and then we can start doing concrete kerb and driveways and rock in for the road. So we will still go close to that Easter PC date”, Mr Taylor concluded. David Barrett
