Cause of sinkhole determined
City officials uncover the cause of an unusual sinkhole on Greenway Circle in the East Hills Business Park. Enlarge video
A sinkhole that appeared late last week in the East Hills Business Park was caused by a water line break, city officials said.
The gaping hole, about 5 feet wide, between the 3700 and 3800 blocks of Greenway Circle, will be repaired this week.
Jeanette Klamm, utilities programs manager for the city of Lawrence, said the utilities department is expecting to repair the water line and fill the hole with soil this evening.
Bill Nye, asphalt supervisor for the city's street maintenance department, said he expected the work to be finished by Friday.
"All we're going to end up doing is patching back the top with asphalt," he said. Nye said his department could not move forward until the water line was fixed, but laying asphalt would take only a few hours.
The business park is east of Lawrence on Kansas Highway 10.
Two years ago, sewer lines collapsed on Tennessee and Kentucky streets, creating holes in the roads that delayed traffic.
Nye said a massive sinkhole that developed in North Lawrence during the flooding of 1993 was the most significant in recent history.
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Pywacket (anonymous) says…
What a disappointing follow-up for all the agenda-driven who were sure the city would just shovel filler in the sinkhole without investigating the underlying problem. Now they'll probably be reduced to commenting on whatever deficiencies they perceive in the article itself.
gr (anonymous) says…
And no one noticed a loss of water during the time it took to erode a hole that big? No problem. Raise the water rates to make up for it and other losses.
hipper_than_hip (anonymous) says…
Bob Skinner, the acting head of the Water Department, is not interesting in fixing waterline leaks. The city has excess water capacity, so leaky waterlines aren't costing the city any money. Fixing a leak costs money, and with excess capacity, there's no recouping the expense of the repair.
Confrontation (anonymous) says…
Pretty cool that we have the Science Guy on our team.
been_there (anonymous) says…
Wasn't it nice of the city to save us money by not fixing the leak until Monday so they did not have to pay overtime for the weekend? Now if they get it done before Friday we won't have to pay double time and a half for working on a holiday.
toe (anonymous) says…
Just throw money in the hole.