BELLE — Following the approval of street repair bids on Aug. 13, the Belle Board of Aldermen agreed to investigate a suspicious problem area in the roadway at the junction of Belle Avenue and Fourth Street just off Highway 28 that resulted in the replacement of a culvert pipe.

Mayor James (Pudd) Mitchell said on Aug. 30 that the Public Works Department investigated the area and found a large gap in the pavement.

“It was collapsing and the water had undermined the road,” Mitchell said. “We’re getting ready to pave Belle Avenue. We had seen that there was a 12-inch gap between the asphalt and the top of the culvert. That’s what told us we needed to uncover it.”

When city employees began to dig into the location, they found a four to six-inch deep hole that was about two feet long that was completely deteriorated.

“It was just open,” Mitchell said. “There was a box culvert there that had been poured years ago, it looked like hand-poured concrete. A lot of rock had washed away. In the recent rains , we had water get between the top of the box culvert and washed it out around the edges, top and sides.”

Once the problem was discovered and confirmed, Mitchell said he called each board member individually and received consent to purchase five concrete culvert pipes.

“We got a consensus of the board to replace it because of the situation it was in,” Mitchell said. “It was a time frame issue. (The road crew) were going to be here before our next meeting to pave the street. I talked to each (board member) and they all said yes. I called and got prices on concrete and metal (culverts). The concrete was a lot cheaper than the metal one and we all agreed concrete would outlast the metal.”

They ordered five culvert pipes, each eight feet long and three feet around from County Material Products located in St. Louis. While waiting for the pipe to arrive, city employees dug a hole about four feet deep and six to eight feet wide in the roadway and added rock to the bottom.

“We dug it down to the hard pan and come in with one-inch minus rock and tamped it down so the culvert had a bed to lie on and wouldn’t shift,” Mitchell said. “It went together a lot easier.”

They started repairing the east side of the road first.

“We started on the east side and went west,” Mitchell said. “We had enough culvert left on each side of the street that we didn’t need to waste the (last) eight-foot piece.”

The board awarded a bid to Pierce Asphalt, LLC, in Newburg at the Aug. 13 meeting to lay new asphalt overlay on Belle Avenue and Taylor Avenue.

“Here we were spending money to redo the street and we would have been back in the same boat again,” Mitchell said.

Pierce Asphalt is scheduled to begin road work in September.

Mitchell added that city workers were finally able to locate the reason for the perpetual puddles on Barcliff Street in Belle.

“We had a deal on Barcliff, but it wasn’t the city,” he said. “We had some complaints and went to look. It turned out it was a waterline busted under a house. That was why Barcliff had so much water. Jerry Dean came and fixed it.”