City gets funding for Dug Gap Battle Road repair, work to begin the week of Aug. 31

Published 11:00 am Monday, August 24, 2020

Repairs to a failed slope on Dug Gap Battle Road near the Dalton Convention Center are expected to begin the week of Aug. 31, Dalton Public Works Department Director Andrew Parker said.

Parker said the work should take about 60 days.

Parker spoke Friday to the Dalton Public Works Committee about the project. He said the Georgia Department of Transportation has committed to funding up to $400,000 or 70% of the project cost, whichever is less, because it is an emergency project.

“That is very important because this is not something we had budgeted for,” Parker said.

The City Council voted earlier this month to approve a $491,008 contract with GeoStabilization International, a firm headquartered in Commerce City, Colorado, to install anchors into the slope and a steel mesh to contain it. Parker said that is a “unit price contract,” meaning that if the contractors don’t use as many work items as planned the costs will be less than that.

Council members also voted to approve a $213,979 contract with Northwest Georgia Paving of Calhoun to grade the slope to prepare it for the stabilization. Again, that is a maximum price. The contractor will be paid an hourly rate, and if it completes the project ahead of schedule the total will be less.

Parker said the plan is to keep one lane of the road open as much as possible, but there may be times, especially in the first week or so when timber is being cleared, that it will be necessary to close both lanes.

On Easter Sunday, Dalton received 6.31 inches of rain in 11 hours, causing a large mudslide that brought mud, rocks and trees onto Dug Gap Battle Road. The Public Works Department cleaned up the debris and put up barriers to reduce further erosion of the slope.