MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota — Nearly four months later, a sinkhole remains in Uptown. After several setbacks, the city of Minneapolis is aiming to get the road reopened before the end of the month.
The sinkhole appeared at 27th Street West and Girard Avenue South in Uptown on April 9 after a sewer main collapsed.
At the time, the city of Minneapolis only expected repairs to take less than two weeks.
"For how long it's been here — from when it happened to now — I am also very surprised it's still not even fixed," said Alexei Dickinson, who lives nearby.
It turns out that before the city of Minneapolis could come in and do its repairs, Metropolitan Council Environmental Services first needed to do work on their 60-inch sanitary pipe.
"Their actual manhole structure had some deteriorating bricks, mortar and at the very bottom... when we stuck a camera down, you could see sections of the manhole that were in pretty bad shape and compromised," explained Curtis Stallings, general foreman of sewer construction for the city of Minneapolis. "Their manhole structure started washing away material and that's when our pipe fell loose. So then that's why stuff was just constantly pouring in and that's why we have that huge sinkhole that was here."
Met Council Spokesperson John Schadl told KARE 11:
"Incidents like the one at 27th and Girard are very infrequent. They are the exception not the rule given regular inspection. Age can contribute to deterioration, as does the weight of vehicle traffic, and freeze and thaw cycles. The work of rebuilding the maintenance hole that serves as a shaft to the city's underground sewer system did take longer than anticipated, but we wanted make sure it was done right. The delay was largely the result of the depth of the project, not to mention the age of the infrastructure. But the bigger issue is the presence of utilities that provide residents with water and gas. Because existing utilities are so close to the maintenance hole we needed to design, from scratch, a custom support system at the excavation site and excavate the deep hole by hand, with shovels, so as not to disrupt the utilities. The process pushed the schedule back, something we understand and recognize is inconvenient for area residents. However, we know residents expect us to perform the work with their safety and the reliability of the infrastructure top of mind. We appreciate the patience of nearby residents."
Stallings added, "This manhole is probably about 30-some-feet down. So it took more time just to ensure the safety of the workers to do the work."
On Tuesday, the city of Minneapolis was able to come back in and start their work to finish the project.
"We just have a couple things we have to do. Just replacing stuff that had to get taken out during that process. Water services had to get removed and looped around. Gas mains had to get cut. So just putting everything back together underground," Stallings said.
City crews are working to repair and restore impacted storm and sanitary pipes, remove the sanitary bypass system, make the final connection of the City sanitary pipe to the MCES system and restore the pavement.
The city of Minneapolis anticipates work will be completed by Aug. 25.
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