Compost material

The City of Dowagiac would like to remind city residents that they can obtain FREE compost from the city’s compost facility.
Public Works employees will be on-site to load compost during the hours of 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16, 23 and 30th; or by appointment throughout September and October for those residents who venture their way to the compost site to pick up material.
The entrance to the compost site is at the east end of Veterans Memorial Drive in Riverside Cemetery, which can be accessed from the intersection of Riverside Drive and Hill Street.
City residents may also request free delivery of compost by e-mailing the Public Services Department at DPS_Service_Request@dowagiac.org or by calling (269) 782-8200.

2010-11 local street
improvements project

We are rapidly closing in on the completion of local street improvement projects for 2010-2011.
There is still some landscaping and the removal of some pavement on Spruce Street to be done.
Christopher Bolt has provided the following summary:
“Throughout the fall of 2010 and summer of 2011, over 30 street areas within our community were improved with repairs, patches, and/or paving with hot-mix asphalt. Improvements were made to nearly 35 blocks, or 2.65 miles, of local streets, in areas distributed fairly equally between the three wards: 1.1 miles in Ward 1, 0.85 miles in Ward 2 and 0.70 miles in Ward 3.
This project was done in partnership with the Cass County Road Commission at a competitive unit price for hot-mix asphalt of $53.02 per ton.
The project was funded using $100,000 of local capital funds from FY 2010 and $150,000 of local capital funds FY 2011 ($250,000 total).
As of this writing, we have expended $183,932.34 on materials and equipment for the project, along with $8,146.32 of crew labor effort. We expect one final invoice from CCRC for the paving work completed on Aug. 29 (estimated to be $30,000, for 566 tons of asphalt placed).
Despite careful scrutiny of the project expenses as work progressed, we discovered a few surprises with utility structures and existing street sections that resulted in cost overruns.
Most notably, we learned that many of our streets do not have adequate asphalt thickness and/or aggregate base to support a mere 1.5 inch asphalt surface overlay. As a result, two to three inches are oftentimes necessary in order to insure reasonable pavement performance, to improve drainage, and/or to enhance overall ride ability (smoothness).”
Plans are being developed for next year’s paving projects and should be ready for Council
review in October.

2011 Infrastructure Capacity
Enhancement (ICE) grant
projects (Uneta, Solomon, Wolf)

Infrastructure grant projects that were awarded in 2009 and began in 2010 are close to being complete.
Following is the Department of Public Services director’s update on the projects:
“The city received this grant in 2009 as part of an initiative to improve water and sewer utility services in three key areas of the city: Uneta Street, Solomon Avenue and Wolf Street.
These projects are substantially complete, with only a few minor items remaining on Wolf Street related to the lift station pump controls at the time of this writing. The project will be finally complete on or before Oct. 1.
Uneta Street, grant funding (fixed amount), $67,830; local match, $67,305; and total project cost, $135,135.
Solomon Avenue, $67,830; $25,591; and $146,000.
Wolf Street, $204,340; $61,898; and $340,000.

— City Manager Kevin P. Anderson