Crews may soon fix year-old sinkhole in Jefferson City neighborhood

A year after a sinkhole opened up on one Jefferson City street, the city may be close to finally fixing the issue.

A bill was introduced to city council Monday to replace a long stretch of a storm water pipe at Forest Hill Avenue and Forest Drive.

ABC 17 News reported on the sinkhole opening there last August after the pipe eroded.

The sinkhole has since grown significantly and shut down a part of the intersection, but residents are still able able to access their homes.

“It’s brought some concern about is it going to spread? What happens if the other side of the street were to sink? This court up here would lose all access,” Third Ward Councilman Ken Hussey, who also lives in the neighborhood, said.

The problem also brought up safety concerns with some neighbors.

“And then to make sure that it was properly fenced off so that children playing, you know there’s a lot of bike riding and kids that play in this neighborhood, to make sure that nobody got injured or hurt,” Hussey said.

The recent heavy rains also have not helped the issue, according to City Engineer David Bange.

“As the pipe would continue to collapse, we’d eventually reach the point where it wouldn’t be able to take the water that’s coming to it and essentially we would be flooding over the top of the road,” Bange said.

The project would cost about $244,000.

One reason why it has taken so long to fix is the city was waiting for funds to become available from the half-cent capital improvement sales tax, according to Bange.

Another reason is a lack of manpower.

“We’re down some of our engineering designers that we had enjoyed in the past,” Bange said. “We had four and now we’re down to one, so projects just take longer.”

If the bill is approved by city council, Jefferson City Public Works expects crews to start on the project in mid-September and have it completed within about 90 days.