GREENFIELD — Everyone can agree on one thing: A delay on the State Road 9 project between Main Street and Davis Road is the last thing the state construction project needs.
However, that’s where the agreement stops.
The Indiana Department of Transportation failed to identify the location of a natural gas pipeline that needed to be moved, officials say; failure to do so has resulted in a delay while the utility company, Vectren, relocates the line. The city says INDOT should have been on top of such a complication; INDOT’s local project manager, however, said identifying the line was the city’s responsibility.
Then, both sides disputed a timeline on how long completion of the work — which has completely closed the city’s main north-south artery — would be delayed. Based on information they said they learned from INDOT, city officials announced last week that the work would be delayed by six weeks. INDOT officials now say they can’t offer a precise timetable.
For such a major construction project — which is affecting thousands of motorists, businesses and residents — the confusion is, well, confusing.
Greenfield city engineer Jason Koch said he did not know why Vectren wasn’t notified ahead of time of the need to move its natural gas line along State Road 9, but that it would have been INDOT’s responsibility since it’s an INDOT project.
Typically, when either INDOT or the city begins work on a road construction project, a utility coordination process takes place that informs both public and private utilities that have lines in the area if there’s a chance they’ll have to be moved.
“Some of these private utilities are sometimes harder to get a hold of,” Koch said.
INDOT spokeswoman Mallory Duncan acknowledged it was an “oversight” on its part that INDOT did not know the gas line would need to be moved before beginning its work.
However, local INDOT project manager Farid Bozorgi had a different answer, saying the city should have been the one to identify the need to move the utility line.
“We didn’t expect this many days of closure,” Bozorgi said. He said the current closure should not be seen as INDOT running over its original schedule, since its work has not started yet. “…I think that this is not our closure. Our closure hasn’t even started yet.”
How long it will be before the closure lifts and work moves to a different section of State Road 9 — also known as State Street — is also an open question.
On April 12, Capt. Chuck McMichael of the Greenfield Police Department, citing an INDOT estimate, said the delay would push the project’s expected completion date back by six weeks. Bozorgi, however, said he never told McMichael there would be a six-week delay or even specify how long the delay would be, although he and McMichael were both in meetings where the extended closure was discussed.
Duncan also said she could not provide a timeline on how long it will take until the section is completed. (The work will move north of Main Street once that section of the project is completed. The original deadline was in May.)
“We just can’t tell until that utility work is completed,” she said.
Greenfield’s water utility manager, Charles Gill, said the department is replacing a 6-inch water main with a new pipe in the area between Osage and Tague Streets. While the INDOT work is not planned to extend down to the depth of the city’s line, Gill said, the department wanted to be safe rather than sorry. It chose to move the water pipe to the west side of the street.
Koch said the water main was not in direct conflict with the INDOT project; the pipe was located deeper than INDOT planned to dig. However, the city decided to move the pipe as a risk mitigation measure once they learned Vectren would be moving its main. Koch said moving the pipe reduces the risk of a water main break or of a joint in the pipe coming loose and leading to drinking water contamination.
“We’re doing this out of an abundance of caution since there’s already a delay with the gas lines,” he said.
Koch said the city always planned on the earlier movement of its stormwater pipes.
It also appears that Vectren, the natural gas and electricity utility company that is relocating its lines in the area, was not in the loop about the project. Alyssia Oshodi, a spokeswoman for Vectren, said the company is accommodating INDOT and the city by moving its line. Oshodi said she could not provide a precise date that Vectren learned of the need to move the line, but that it was after the work on State Street began.
The natural gas line will be moved to the east side of the street between Osage and Tague, in the same stretch of the street where Greenfield Water is completing its work on the west side of the street. Oshodi estimated that Vectren’s work will be complete by May 10.
“We are accommodating the work that they are doing,” she said.
Business reaction
Meanwhile, the news of a delay in the project is an unwelcome one for some in the area.
“My reaction is, ‘Are you serious?’” said Retta Livengood, director of the Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce. In addition to representing businesses that are in the road closure area, her office is on the Courthouse Square along State Street.
“…I just think it’s extremely frustrating, for myself as well as everyone else,” she said.
While the work is necessary and will ultimately be beneficial for the city, Livengood said, the timing is bad, with the project coming just as many people are getting vaccinated and venturing outside after a year of COVID-19 restrictions. A delay in the project, she said, just means a longer time period in which businesses in downtown Greenfield and along State Street will be harder to reach.
Steve McCleerey, owner of McCleerey’s Sporting Goods, said his customers have been able to find the store, and he hasn’t noticed a drop in business. However, he’s looking forward to the completion of the project.
“I’m a little disappointed for all the residents and all of us in that area,” he said of the delay.
Connie Walden, owner of All Occasions Hair Salon, said the closure has mostly not impacted her business, but it has made it hard for some customers to find the salon and make it to their appointments on time.
“We just deal with it; that’s all you can do,” she said.
Livengood encouraged people to shop at the local businesses that have invested in Hancock County in turn.
“These merchants have been here through it all,” she said.