Spear Street reopens

More than eight months after last summer’s floods, Spear Street reopened to traffic on April 6.

Last year, the remnants of Hurricane Beryl left behind a canyon on the north-south thoroughfare after Mud Hollow Brook washed out a culvert between Lime Kiln Road and Carpenter Road. A new dual culvert has replaced it.

“I wanted to thank everybody who has taken part in this, not only members of the board, past members of the board, but also all the adjoining landowners who worked hand-in-hand with us to make sure this project moved forward quickly,” town administrator Nate Bareham said at the Charlotte Selectboard’s meeting on April 14.

Although the closure has ended, the job isn’t quite done. Contractors still need to clean up the staging area and then, finally, to repave the road.

“We’re just waiting for better weather,” Bareham said. “The town will usually go out to bid for paving late April, early May, and try to get a contractor to come in and do paving work sometime in late May or June.”

The delay comes with a price. While the Federal Highway Administration’s Emergency Relief Program will cover the cost of all work completed by April 7 (totaling roughly $1.1 million by Bareham’s account), the town will have to chip in for expenses incurred following that deadline.

Bareham couldn’t yet estimate the town’s likely bill, but he emphasized that the “substantive work” finished on time.

“We’re not going to have to put in a ton of extra money relative to the overall project cost,” he said.