The St. James Street Department began pouring asphalt on Monday on Benjamin Boulevard as one of the final pieces of a stormwater project that started two years ago. Work will see several areas of road patched along both Benjamin and Amanda Avenue over the next week.

“So, this goes back to our stormwater project. We basically split our flow up and built two new (crosspipes) and built all this back through here. Basically, now, we are coming back in here and patching back the asphalt,” Public Works Director Lyle Thomas explained.

The project started two years ago with the city replacing 50 residential culverts and reworking the stormwater system throughout the subdivision. There were issues with standing water and little flow due to damaged culverts and ditches that were not properly aligned.

That portion of the project was completed and provided better water flow throughout the area to create better flow away from the neighborhood to the stormwater collection system.

Last year, the city came back in and installed two large crosspipes, which connected one side of the subdivision to the other to take storm water out of the neighborhood. It brought water to another stormwater collection system, which guided water from the area along another route.

Thomas said the stormwater improvement worked very well, and now the city is finalizing the project by pouring hot mix asphalt to repair the road, which was dug up to install the crosspipes, and later filled in with rock.

There will be several areas addressed along with filling the cross pipe dig outs, as Street Supervisor Danny Scheel said there are also several areas of roadway that are failing and will need to be dug out and repaired as well. This opportunity will also allow the city to address those issues while filling in the other areas that need patching.

Thomas said the work should not take very long and the street department will move to another stormwater project needing patching along Hardy Street, where the city dug out and installed new curb and gutter to align stormwater drainage there as well.

The city brought in Brown’s Tree Service last week to trim out a utility line running adjacent to the subdivision as well, which should help keep tree limbs out of the power lines to ensure services are not interrupted by a broken branch or a limb scraping a line.

Thomas said this work should mostly wrap up the project, and with only a few minor corrections still left to be completed.