Repairs on Greenbush embankment hit snag

July 20, 2006

  Repair work on a failed embankment on Route 2 in Greenbush hit a snag last Thursday.
"We knew going in that odds were the wall would slide," DOT spokesman Jerry Waldo said. "The load of rocks was too heavy for the soil that's underneath it."
The building of a 30-foot stone wall along a stretch of Route 2 in Greenbush is part of an effort to repair a section of embankment that failed two weeks ago. The failure of the embankment began with a rapidly widening crack that some area residents believed would cause that section of road to break off and tumble into the river. But there was never any chance of that, according to Waldo, who explained that, unchecked, the embankment would have simply slid into the water.
  DOT crews started rebuilding the failed wall last Thursday and were still working on it Monday afternoon.
  "The plan was to rebuild the wall, and if it slides, fill it again," Waldo said. "It seems to be stabilized at the moment."
  Waldo added that there was a chance that the work being done by the DOT would result in the opening of one lane later in the week.
  "I don't want to be too optimistic, though, because we won't know for sure until we see how much more work we have to do," he said.