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Project on shaky ground
(by Maggie Fazeli Fard - May 13, 2008)
Township officials are trying to find a way to stabilize land that is showing signs of settlement before resurfacing the area for recreational use.
When early investigations of River Vale’s Mark Lane Recreational Complex revealed fill in the ground, Township Engineer Dennis Harrington believed that a minimum amount of surface work to compact the fill would be sufficient in stabilizing the land for use and preventing settlement in the future.
But nine months after the plan to modify and revitalize the existing sports facilities was presented to the council, Harrington reported that he had been optimistic.
“It’s going to take significant work beyond compaction to avoid settlement,” reported Harrington on Monday, May 12.
Harrington told the council that equipment would only succeed in compacting three to four feet of fill. The Mark Lane area has upwards of eight feet of fill.
A possible solution, said Harrington, is a two-part compaction procedure that would involve removing a top layer of about three to four feet of fill and compacting the fill beneath it, then putting the removed fill back on top and compacting that. Artificial turf would then be installed on top.
“We’d have to do a multi-step process rather than just work on the surface,” said Harrington, who consulted with an independent geotechnical engineer as well as engineers from his own firm, T&M Associates, before presenting his findings.
Harrington said that there is no way to be certain that this process would be a permanent solution. He noted, however, that the artificial turf that would go over the compacted fill has a life of 10 to 12 years and that the proposed compaction process would maintain the integrity of the project over the course of that time.
The council authorized Harrington to obtain an estimate on the cost of the additional work. The council will make a decision on how to proceed with the modifications at a future meeting.
“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible,” said Harrington, “but it’s more work than I thought it was six months ago.”
Maggie Fazeli Fard's e-mail address is fazelifard@northjersey.com.
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