3.27.1 General

It is unlawful for any person to break, excavate, tunnel, undermine or in any manner affect the surface or base of any street or to place, deposit or leave upon any street any earth or any other excavated material obstructing or tending to interfere with the free use of the street, unless such persons shall first have obtained an encroachment permit therefor from the Amalga Town Council. All permits shall be subject to revocation and the municipality may refuse to issue a permit for failure of the permittee or applicant to abide by the terms and conditions of this regulation. In the case of an emergency endangering life or property, encroachment permits will not be required prior to excavation, providing the council person over roads is notified and a permit is applied for as soon as practicable. (a) To obtain a permit the applicant must: 1) Provide the Amalga Town council with a site plan showing location of proposed project indicating distance from property boundaries on both sides of the road, and location of all underground utilities, i.e. water, telephone, natural gas, sewer, etc. 2) Provide adjacent property owners a courtesy notice as described in The Amalga Town Land Management and Development Code, 1.6.3. 3) Provide the Amalga Town council with a traffic control plan, including a map illustrating location of all traffic control devices to be used. The plan must meet the Manual of Traffic Control Devices Specifications. (b) Any and all encroachment work on a public right-of-way in the Town of Amalga must be done by a licensed and bonded contractor. (c) All street surfacing, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, driveways or other hard surfaces falling in the line of the excavation which must be removed in performance of the work shall be restored in kind by the excavator, unless otherwise directed by the council person, or his/her representative, in accordance with the specifications contained in this regulation governing the various types of surfaces involved. (d) Undesirable Material: If material not suitable for backfill is encountered during excavation the contractor shall remove it to a site designated by the town council person over roads. Undesirable material must not be stored at the encroachment site, but must be removed prior to the conclusion of that day=s work shift on the day the undesirable material was excavated. 3.27.2 Excavation Any trench excavated under the authority of the Amalga Town Encroachment Permit shall be excavated equal distance from the center of the pipeline. The trench shall not be excavated wider than twelve inches on each side of the sewer pipe, drainage pipe, water pipe, electrical conduit, telephone line, etc. (a) Bridging: The contractor shall construct suitable bridging over the trench at all street intersections and at driveways to property abutting the line of the work, and at such other points as may be required. (b) No excavations will be left open overnight. The excavations shall be backfilled and compacted at the close of each working day, or the contractor will provide a plate or bridge capable of supporting traffic without interfering with traffic. The plate or bridge shall be approved by the town engineer. Care and maintenance of the plate or bridge shall be the responsibility of the contractor. Traffic control devises shall remain in place to warn traffic of the hole under the plate or bridge. 3.27.3 Backfilling Backfill shall be carefully placed around and over pipes and shall not be permitted to fall directly on a pipe from such a height or in such a manner as to cause damage. In these specifications the process of preparing the trench bottom to receive the pipe and the backfilling on each side of the pipe to a level twelve inches over the top of the pipe is defined as pipe bedding. (a) Trench backfilling above the level of the pipe bedding shall be accomplished with excavated material, if approved by the town engineer, or imported pit run material free from rocks larger than eight inches in diameter. No washed rock or P-gravel shall be used in backfilling excavations in the public right-of-way above the pipe bedding. The trench above the pipe bedding shall be filled with pit run material within four inches of the top of the trench. The last four inches of fill beneath the asphalt layer shall be crushed aggregate base. (b) The backfill in all utility trenches shall be either compacted or consolidated according to the requirements of the materials being placed in the trench. Under pavements or other surface improvement the in-place density shall be a minimum of ninety-five percent of laboratory standard maximum dry density, as determined by AASHTO T-99. Roadway shoulders or other areas without hard surfacing shall be compacted to ninety percent. (c) In the event the native excavated material appears to be very difficult to compact or consolidate to the required densities, or is unacceptable as backfill in the opinion of the town engineer, the native material shall be removed from the construction site and disposed of at the landfill or at a site approved by the town council person over roads, and shall be replaced with pit run material as described above, and shall be free from sod, vegetation, and other organic or deleterious materials. (d) Fill material under, around, and to one foot over the pipe, referred to above as pipe bedding, shall consist of select earth, sand or fine gravel, free from clods, lumps or stones larger than 1 2 inches to their maximum dimensions. Size shall be limited to 3/4" maximum around PVC, ABS, or polyethylene pipes. In wet or unstable conditions, material in this zone shall be free draining, non-plastic material such as washed rock. (e) Pipe bedding material shall be placed in maximum layers of six inches. Holes of ample dimensions to accept bell ends shall be dug in the bottom of the trench for each pipe length. Uniform bearing for each pipe barrel shall be provided for the full length of each pipe. Above the pipe bedding to finished sub-grade, backfilling under unimproved areas (such as borrow pits), can be placed in eighteen inch layers. Back filling under improved areas (such as paved streets) shall be placed in twelve inch layers. All layers throughout backfill zones in improved areas will be compacted to not less than ninety-five percent of the maximum Standard Proctor Density, except in areas without hard surfacing, as noted above. Adequate testing by the contractor shall be required to verify compaction requirements. (f) All subsequent settling of backfill areas and other damages resulting from the use of substandard materials and/or procedures, will become the sole responsibility of the contractor for a period of not less than two years following the final approval of the entire project. (g) Impervious backfill shall be required at irrigation canal crossings or other waterway crossings. (h) All areas disturbed by excavation and backfilling construction shall be restored to its original condition, or better, at the contractor=s expense. (i) All backfilling operations shall be completed within ten calendar days from the starting of excavation. 3.27.4 Compaction Backfilled material shall be compacted by means of mechanical compactors of a size and type sufficient to complete the compaction to required levels, and approved by the town engineer. (a) Prior to compaction, each layer shall be evenly spread and moistened as approved by the town engineer. The material shall be placed at a moisture content such that after compaction the required relative densities will be produced; also, the material shall be placed in lifts which, prior to compaction, shall not exceed twelve inches under improved areas or eighteen inches under unimproved areas. (b) Approval of equipment, thickness of layers, moisture content, and compaction effort shall not be deemed to relieve the contractor of the responsibility for attaining the specified minimum relative densities. The contractor, in planning his work, shall allow sufficient time to make tests for relative densities for the approval of the town engineer. 3.27.5 Bituminous Surface Where trenches are excavated through bituminous surfaced roads, driveways, parking areas, etc., the surface shall be restored and maintained as follows: (a) The area over trenches to be resurfaced shall be graded and rolled to provide a sub-grade which is firm and unyielding. Density of the subgrade materials shall be ninety-five percent of AASHTO T-99. Mud or other soft or spongy material shall be removed and the void filled with pit run material and rolled and tamped thoroughly in layers not exceeding twelve inches in thickness. The edges of trenches which are broken down during the making of sub-grade shall be removed and trimmed neatly before resurfacing. (b) Before any permanent resurfacing is placed, the contractor shall trim the existing paving to clean, straight lines as nearly parallel to the centerline of the trench as practicable. Removed asphalt shall be replaced to the line of the existing asphalt. (c) Existing bituminous paving shall be cut back a minimum of six inches beyond the limits of any excavation or cave-in along the trench so that the edges of the new paving will rest on at least six inches of undisturbed soil. The paving shall be cut vertically in such a manner as to not damage the adjoining pavement or hard surfacing. The portion to be removed shall be broken up in a manner that will not cause damage to the pavement outside the limits of the trench. However, any pavement damaged by operations outside the limits of the trench shall be replaced. (d) As soon as practical, weather permitting, the bituminous surface shall be restored by standard paving practices. (e) The surface of the pavement, after compaction, shall be uniform and true to the established crown and grade. When tested with a ten foot long straight edge placed parallel to the centerline of the roadway, the surface of the pavement at any point shall not deviate from the lower edge of the straight edge by more than 3/8 inch. (f) Pavement restoration shall include priming with a brush applicator the pavement edges and sub-base with Type MC-70 bituminous material and placing and rolling plant hot mix bituminous material. The thickness of the asphalt in the six inch cut back area (see 3.27.6c) shall be equal to the adjacent asphalt surface but not less than 3 inches thick. In the area directly above the trench the asphalt shall be one inch thicker, or at least four inches thick. 3.27.6 Concrete Surfaces All concrete curbs, gutters, sidewalks, and driveways shall be removed and replaced to the next joint or scoring line beyond the actually damaged or broken sections; or in the event that joints or scoring lines do not exist or are three or more feet from the removed or damaged section, the damaged portions shall be removed and reconstructed to a neat Asaw cut@ vertical plane face. All new concrete shall match, as nearly as possible, the appearance of adjacent concrete improvements. Where necessary, lamp black or other pigments shall be added to the new concrete to accurately match the existing material.