LAWTON – Capital improvements for streets, manholes, water lines, and a dam were approved recently by the City Council.
• A $5,989,880 contract was awarded to Southwest Water Works, of Oklahoma City, to construct and rehabilitate approximately 16,500 linear feet (3.1 miles) of water lines; SWWW’s bid was half a million dollars lower than the engineer’s estimated probable cost.
The project will include the Meadowbrook water line replacement project from 38th to 53rd streets, and the 67th Street water line construction project from Bishop Road to south of Combs Road.
• Ace Pipe Cleaning won a $620,000 contract to “effectively and efficiently coat” new and rehabilitated sanitary sewer manholes in Lawton with amine cured epoxy, which will extend their “useable life” to 75 years, the Kansas City, Missouri, company claimed.
• Ellsworth Construction of Oklahoma City, doing business as A-Tech Paving, received a $1,548,624 contract to rehabilitate 10 streets across the city via cold milling and asphalt resurfacing. In that process, an old layer of asphalt which is typically cracked and pitted is ground off and replaced with a fresh layer.
The contractor was given 90 days to complete the job.
Meanwhile, the city’s Streets, Roads and Bridges Committee, assisted by city staff from the Engineering and Public Works departments and the City Manager’s Office, has singled out 13 additional streets for similar attention, and the committee selected 18 more streets on Nov. 15, raising the total to 41.
“We want to have 40 of these projects done by Thanksgiving 2024,” Mayor Stan Booker said earlier this month.
• The council authorized Public Utilities Director Rusty Whisenhunt to advertise for bids on reconstruction of the damaged Lake Ellsworth spillway.
The estimated cost of the work is $20 million, which will be financed with a $925,251 high-hazard dam grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, $11 million in American Rescue Plan Act grants from the Biden administration, and up to $8 million in city matching funds, records indicate.
Lake Ellsworth’s concrete spillway was damaged after heavy rains in 2015 forced the city to open the floodgates to release runoff water that otherwise would have topped the dam.
City officials knew from the outset that heavy runoff damaged concrete panels in the spillway. However, further analysis revealed other problems, such as empty spaces beneath the spillway that were identified after geotechnical and engineering analyses. The spillway “floated” during the water releases, Whisenhunt told Southwest Ledger.
Rehabilitation measures, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board reported, will include adding more robust rock anchors, additional drains beneath the apron, sealing cracks and casting a reinforced concrete slab over the existing apron, repairing concrete on the 363-foot-long spillway, retrofitting the spillway retaining walls, adding chute blocks on the spillway stilling basin, and adding riprap along the east side of the spillway.
The Ellsworth dam is labeled a high-hazard structure because more than 5,200 people downstream would be at-risk if the dam failed, the OWRB explained.
According to the state agency, the dam is a combination earth fill and concrete structure 3,900 feet long, 96 feet high, and 30 feet wide at the top. It has 15 gates, each 10 feet high and 20 feet wide.
Lake Ellsworth provides approximately 20% of Lawton’s water, and Lake Waurika about 10%, Whisenhunt said. Lake Lawtonka is the city’s primary source of fresh water.
Lake Ellsworth is northeast of Lawton, between Elgin and Apache, and straddles the Comanche/Caddo county line. It was built by the City of Lawton in 1962 as a source of drinking water and for recreation.
The reservoir, an impoundment of East Cache Creek, encompasses 5,100 surface acres and has 53½ miles of shoreline.