Grangebel Park paths must be ripped up and rebuilt

Riverhead Town will soon rebuild the gravel paths constructed in Grangebel Park in 2010.

The paths were built during the final phase of the historic park’s multimillion dollar overhaul that spanned more than two decades.

Terry Contracting of Riverhead built the paths under a $1.37 million site improvement contract for the park. Terry Contracting’s bid amount for the paths was $98,000. The paths were constructed using a porous, flexible plastic paving material which forms a base to hold gravel filling in place. It’s supposed to result in a permeable surface that can handle vehicular traffic, as well as bicycles and wheel chairs, according to the manufacturer’s website.

The plastic paving grids that were installed proved problematic from the start, according to Riverhead Town engineer Ken Testa. He said the plastic sheets buckled when they expanded in the heat.

“It became a hump,” Testa said of the plastic sheets.

The town tried cutting pieces out to allow for expansion and re-anchoring the matting, Testa said.

But along came Superstorm Sandy — the Oct. 29, 2012 storm left most of the park was under water.

A lot of the plastic matting came loose and was floating in the flood water, Councilwoman Jodi Giglio said. Sections of it remain lifted today.

The town engineer said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has verbally approved $75,000 to in Sandy-related grant monies to rebuild the Grangebel Park paths.

Representatives of the manufacturer have visited the site and “they were scratching their heads,” Testa said. “They are saying they don’t have this problem in general,” he said. They suggested re-installing the matting using different anchors.

A spokesman for Invisible Structures Inc., the Golden, Colo. manufacturer of GravelPave2, which was called out in the town’s bid specifications, said generally speaking, incorrect installation is the cause of buckling.

“I am not familiar with this particular installation, so I can’t speak to what happened there,” Dustin Glist, media and information director for Invisible Structures said in a phone interview.

“But in general, if the base coourse is not the proper material or it it’s not properly compacted, that’s usually the cause of failure,” Glist said. “When there’s buckling, it’s often because it was installed in colder weather. The temperature should be at least 55 degrees when it’s installed, otherwise when the weather warms up, the plastic expands and it will buckle,” Glist said.

Bob Terry of Terry Contracting did not return a call seeking comment.

Testa said he’d “prefer to use something else given what’s transpired” but he acknowledged his options are limited.

“It must be permeable and it must be bicycle-friendly,” Testa said, noting that the funding for the gravel paths, which cost $98,000 to install, came from a grant to construct bicycle paths specifically. The permeability requirement was required by the state DEC as a water-protection measure, Testa said.

The town will begin ripping the plastic pathway material out within the next few weeks, Testa said.

The current condition of the paths is hazardous, he acknowledged.

“It presents a trip hazard for people walking or bicycling,” he said.

Dan Leonard, who regularly fishes in the park, said he often sees people trip on the bumpy path.

“I’m afraid someone is going to trip on the path near the spillway and fall into the water,” Leonard said.

Editor’s note: The town’s bid specifications called for the installation of GravelPave2 porous paving. Dustin Glist, a spokesman for the manufacturer of GravelPave2, upon reviewing photos of the paving material used in Grangebel Park, said the material used was not GravelPave2. The story as originally published incorrectly identified the paving material used in the Riverhead park as GravelPave2.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl
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