The state Department of Transportation (DOT) has scheduled a public information session on a planned drainage improvement project for state property along a section of Interstate-84 in Sandy Hook, near Bungalow Terrace in Riverside.louis.bacho@ct.gov.

The session is slated for Tuesday, January 9, at the Multipurpose Center at 14 Riverside Road in Sandy Hook. Residents will be able to ask DOT officials questions about the project starting at 6:30 pm. A presentation of construction plans is slated for 7 pm. The inclement weather date for the event is January 24.

DOT Project Manager Louis Bacho said December 1 that the $850,000 construction project is intended to repair and improve a deteriorated large underground culvert that carries the flow of Pole Bridge Brook underground along I-84. Sections of the 7-foot-diameter asphalt-coated corrugated metal pipe have deteriorated across time. The culvert is 502 feet long and crosses the westbound lanes of I-84 on a skewed angle.

Sections of the pipe are in poor condition with rust and perforation holes present. The repair work will involve installing a corrugated metal plate pipe liner within the existing pipe. While the improvement work is underway, Pole Bridge Brook's water flow will be pumped over a ridge into a channel within the drainage area of an existing adjacent culvert, according to DOT. Pole Bridge Brook's water flow eventually discharges into the Lake Zoar section of the Housatonic River.

Mr Bacho said that construction workers' access to the site would be provided from westbound I-84's road shoulder in the vicinity of Bungalow Terrace in the Riverside section. The construction work is not expected to interfere with traffic flow on I-84 or on local roads.

The project is scheduled to start in the spring of 2020. The work is expected to take one construction season or less to complete. People interested in discussing the project with Mr Bacho may contact him by telephone at DOT at 860 594-3212 or via e-mail at