A large crack on the side of the South Domingo Baca Arroyo wall just east of Ventura Street is being repaired by a crew from Salls Brothers Construction and should be complete before the end of next week.
The construction crew was busy prepping the arroyo wall and making sure water remained out of the workspace when approached on Monday. The foreman on the project gave the estimated timeline and stated they were using similar materials originally used to construct the arroyo.
The crew is tasked with tearing out the damaged concrete and rebar. Once the damaged area is removed, new steel reinforcements will be installed and a 4,000 PSI concrete mix poured, smoothed over and cured to repair the damages.
The wall was thought to be damaged from extreme heat earlier this summer when a large crack appeared on the south side of the arroyo, not far from Rotary Park. One person reportedly heard an explosion in the area prior to the crack being found by area residents.
AMAFCA helps with arroyo repair work
Scott Cilke, spokesperson for the Department of Municipal Development, said in July the high heat may have caused the concrete to expand and crack.
“It is very rare that the cracks are as bad as this one, so our department is working with AMAFCA to research it and find out why it happened (this severely in this case) and what we can do to not only fix it, but hopefully prevent it from happening with this severity again in the future.”
In a Nov.16 email Cilke expanded on the cause of the damage, explaining there was a flaw in the placement of the rebar in the original design. He said the material being used to repair the damage is the same as the original material.
“However, we suspect the reason for the failure was the rebar in the damaged area was too close to the top of the slab, which allowed it to expand out much easier. That will be fixed this time,” Cilke said.
Nolan Bennett, field engineer for the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority, said that although that portion of the arroyo is city property, AMAFCA provides assistance to different government entities through an Agency and Area-Wide Flood Control Maintenance agreement.
Bennett said the estimated cost of the repairs is $50,000 with funding provided by the city of Albuquerque. He said the new rebar being installed is a little larger than the reinforcements being torn out, and that concrete is scheduled to be poured on Friday, Nov. 18. The arroyo should be “weather ready” within 12 hours of pouring the concrete and able to withstand a minor storm, Bennett said.
