MOUNT VERNON – The Street Department received a new street sweeper approved for purchase by City Council in December 2021 at a cost of $253,986 after trading in the old sweeper.
“They've been cleaning catch basins, using that sweeper because it's equipped with a catch basin cleaner,” Safety-Service Director Rick Dzik told the Mount Vernon News. “So, it's a big upgrade from their previous model. It's a little easier to do that work.”
In addition, the Street Department re-contoured the ditch line on Stevens Street and dug some ditches on Lawn Avenue to keep the stormwater flow moving.
Crews also are in the midst of mowing all of the city’s right-of-way, cutting the brash back so people can see to drive.
They’ve completed conflict monitoring testing on every intersection in the city that has traffic signals.
“It basically runs a test on the signal to make sure that the lights aren’t going to conflict with each other,” Dzik said.
Lime sludge flowing into empty lagoon
After one of the two lime lagoons was cleaned out last Wednesday, the water treatment plant diverted lime sludge produced by the plant into the newly emptied lagoon.
“We're kind of out of the woods on that one and have now a nice, empty lagoon for them to start discharging,” Dzik said. “And you'll recall a lot of the reasons we had to empty that lagoon was that the outlet on the lagoon we were using was submerged, which meant that it was only a matter of time before it couldn't really push out any more products.”
The city will spend the next 10 years saving to get the second lagoon cleaned out, but, he said, this bought the city quite a bit of time. It took approximately 50 years to fill the two lagoons, he estimated.
“The other thing that we've worked on this week is Utility and Engineering [departments] have been working very closely with the Ohio EPA,” Dzik said. “They’re some submitting their final compliance plan for the new lime distribution fields out there by the Street Department.”
Sealing cracks on paved streets
“Sealing helps lengthen the life of our streets. It's expensive to repave streets,” Dzik said. “And if we can seal the cracks before they get too big, the pavement really just lasts longer. It gives us a little bit more time before we have to pave those streets.”
The streets included in the sealing project include W. High (Public Square to west city limits), 1.2 miles; East High Street (Public Square to Park), 0.2 miles; Kirk Street, 0.15 mile; Newark Road (Melick to south city limits), 0.8 miles; South Main Street (Public Square to Gay/ Mulberry split), 0.2 miles; South Main Street (Mount Vernon Avenue to south city limit); West Vine Street (Gay to Mulberry Street), 0.1 miles; Clay Street (all), Cooper Street (all), 0.1 mile; Cottage Street (Cooper to Calhoun), 0.1 miles; and Woodlake (Coshocton to Yauger), 0.3 miles.
