CHICOPEE — During the City Council meeting on Sept. 5, the council approved two separate appropriations totaling nearly $2 million for repairs to the Chicopee Comprehensive High School retention area and retaining wall.
Chief of Staff Mike Pise was filling in for Mayor John Vieau at the meeting and explained both projects.
The first appropriation was $1.6 million to the School Department Special Account from available funds in the Stabilization Fund for the CCHS retention area rebuild.
Pise explained that the district had to change the bus routing for CCHS because the ravine on the north side building is having erosion problems and damage to the ravine that is comprising the stability of the parking lot.
“We’ve gone through studies; we’ve done some emergency repairs. The School Department has been trying to maintain that property, but it’s come to the point where the erosion has gotten bad and clogged some of the retentions. It’s an expense that we have to go through.”
Superintendent Marcus Ware and Chicopee Public Schools Maintenance Director Scott Chapdelaine were also at the meeting to provide clarity on the project.
Chapdelaine said the schools are having a $100,000 study done with SLR Consulting because at first, they thought the area washed out because there weren’t enough leaching tanks throughout the site so all the water pressure from the roof and parking lot dumps into a leaching area and then it goes into three different leaching tanks and then goes into the detention area.
Chapdelaine explained, “What was discovered by getting this study done, after we lost the area, we determined is the way it was specked which is basically all the drainage doesn’t go into the leeching chambers, it goes right into the detention area. They’re saying that there’s probably too much hydraulic volume and that’s why it’s blowing out.”
The original problem was discovered in May 2023 after custodians heard water pouring over the hill where the detention area was and began looking at option to fix it. It took until August 2023 to do an emergency repair after getting a design done and approved.
That project cost $266,000 just to detain the area so it didn’t get worse.
The project has yet to go out for bid and $1.6 million is an estimate from the engineer. Chapdelaine said he wanted to get the funding first and the final cost could come in higher or lower. It is still in the planning phase and will not go into construction until next summer once approved.
Besides shutting the site down since they can’t do it while school is in session, Chapdelaine said they are going to have to put in leeching chambers, so the water pressure delineates before it goes into the catch basin area or “we’ll lose it again.” Chapdelaine and his team are currently keeping a close eye on the area.
While also working with the Planning Department and looking at the original blueprints, it was installed as designed but was a “poor design,” according to Chapdelaine.
He said, “From working with the Planning Department, they’re surprised because most of these blueprints were done in 2004 and 2005 and there was wetlands protection acts put in place so it shouldn’t have been designed and it shouldn’t have been approved the way it was and then we also have a problem where the Planning Department has a certain plan that shows where all the parking lots and the way the parking lots designed and that was approved design and that’s not what we have there.”
There is more pavement and impervious material than it is designed so they have to redesign the whole system.
City Council President Frank Laflamme said he wasn’t to work closely with Chapdelaine and the mayor on this project because it seems it was poorly designed to begin with.
He said, “I’m curious why it failed. To me it sounds like it was a flaw from the beginning of undersized so why are we not, if it is that way, why are we not holding the vendor accountable for $1.6 million. I’m going to ask that be looked in to because it should have been designed right. Why should a taxpayer have to pay this kind of money for something that’s not your fault, you didn’t design it. That’s what we paid all these architects and all these engineers to do for us.”
The second appropriation was for $350,000 for CCHA retaining wall rebuild.
Pise said the retaining wall is a part of this project that the city is looking at.
The School Department provided a list of seven capital improvement projects to the City Council that Ware said he and his team will discuss at a future meeting.
Items one and two on the list were the two projects unanimously approved at the meeting by the City Council.
