The Ohio Department of Transportation is planning a culvert replacement project located along SR98 approximately 1200-feet south of Baker Road in Richland County. The structurally deficient slab top culvert and wing walls will be replaced with a new concrete box or concrete elliptical culvert and full height wing walls.
The project will require permanent right-of-way to remove and reinstall the culvert. Deep excavation will be required for the proposed work. However, no utilities will need to be relocated to construct this project. In accordance with the ODOT Office of Environmental Services’ (OES) Regulated Materials Review (RMR) guidelines, an RMR Screening was conducted. The current land use of the properties adjacent to this project are considered residential and agricultural. No regulated materials records were found with the project boundaries during a search of the Ohio Regulated Properties Search (ORPS) tool. Based on this information, the project is considered exempt from further regulated material investigations.
District environmental staff accessed the SHPO GIS database on November 6 and coordination with the State of Ohio Historic Preservation office was conducted on November 11. In accordance with Stipulation V©(1) and Appendix B of the Section 106 Programmatic Agreement executed on November 8, 2017 (Agreement No. 19319), amended on July 11, 2019, ODOT-OES has determined that the proposed project is a type of undertaking that has minimal potential to cause effects to historic properties and is not a part of a larger undertaking.
Traffic will be detoured during construction. The detour duration will be for 30 days. The detour route for northbound SR98 traffic is SR598 northbound to SR61 southbound to SR98. The southbound SR98 detour route is the reverse of the northbound detour route. Construction is anticipated to begin in April 2023.
Written comments about the proposed project may be mailed to Don Rostofer, ODOT District 3 Environmental Coordinator, 906 Clark Avenue, Ashland OH 44805. You can also contact ODOT by telephone at (800) 276-4188 or by email at [email protected].
Source: ODOT; Image by awsloley from Pixabay
