MPO has concerns with river park development

MPO has concerns with river park development

Delta Regional River Park facing issues with flooding, maintenance

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The Delta Regional River Park trail will need ongoing maintenance. Metropolitan Planning Organization Study Director Eddie Brawley delivered and update on the trail development at the MPO citizen’s meeting early this month, but said there are more questions than answers for the road work in the flood plain.

The Delta Regional River Park trail starts at the Big River Crossing landing at Dacus Lake Road and circles north on county road and newly cut trails looping back from the Lake near the river side. The natural setting of the park contrasts the city vista in Memphis with the wildlife and farmland in the West Memphis park on the unprotected side of the levee.

That is where the director’s questions come in.

The almost annual spring flood washed through newly laid recycled asphalt paving (RAP) material in a few spots, raising questions about the trail’s durability.

“It will be an ongoing maintenance thing regardless of what we do,” said Brawley.

Overall the flood damage wasn’t the nightmare some envisioned.

“It held up better than I thought it would,” said Brawley. “Overall it seems to have held up well, but I was holding my breath.”

Brawley described the eroding action of the flood water in certain spots and said a fix would be attempted. “We had a couple places where it literally washed out,” said Brawley.

“It looked like the water broke over the road and then was kind of churning on the other side. So we are putting a strip of concrete behind thinking it will hold that. We don’t know how it will hold, you just do the best you can. Hopefully that will take care of the problem.”

Brawley doesn’t know that it will and he said for that matter no one else does either. The first flood experience on the Delta Regional River Park trail left the study director with some observations.

“I’m not sure the river always does flood in the same places or the same way,” said Brawley. “The next flood may be some other place.”

Not all the potential concerns may be seen with the eye.

“You don’t know what it did to the sub-surface,” said Brawley. The good compaction may be just bubbling under there, I don’t know.”

By John Rech