Work Is Started at Gillies Creek

Contractors have begun an $885,000 rechanneling and realignment of Gillies Creek in the Fulton area, a project designed to alleviate much of severe flooding the area has experienced twice in the past three years.

W. C. English Construction Co., Inc., began work earlier this summer which will move the creek north of its present location and north of a new four-lane divided parkway approved this week by the Richmond Planning Commission.

Approved Monday was the general character and location of an improved Williamsburg Avenue and a new Stoney Run Parkway. The parkway has been designed to connect Williamsburg Avenue with Government Road and is to carry heavy truck traffic "out of rather than through the Fulton area," according to Kenneth V. Magdziuk of the engineering consulting firm of Harland Bartholomew & Associates.

Magdziuk also told the commission Monday about the creek realignment project, for which an $885,420 contract was awarded May 31.

The "new" creek would be relocated north of the parkway and north of its present location and would be deepened so it would contain under normal conditions what is considered to be a 15-year flood level.

The bottom and sides of the new creek would be covered with concrete, up to the 15-year flood level.

The total height of the banks, however, would be able to contain water equivalent to a 100-year flood level, he said, the same type which caused considerable damage in late June as part of tropical storm Agnes.

According to T. G. Edwards, the Fulton project director, the new creek alignment with its deeper channel will mean the area will be less susceptible to the extensive flooding which occurred this year and in August, 1969.

Magdziuk told the commission that in the event of another 100-year flood of the magnitude of this year's flood, the waters should rise no higher than the edge of the parkway.

The realignment probably will be completed sometime next summer, according to Dallas Williams of the Richmond Department of Public Works.

The two road projects are to be completed in 1974 or 1975, Williams said. They are to cost a total of approximately $2.75-million, out of a total of about $4 million which has been earmarked in the city's capital improvement program for all street improvement expenses.

Two-thirds of the cost of all Fulton projects, including the creek and streets, is to be financed with federal funds.

Magdziuk explained that both street projects will be "well landscaped," with the areas on either side of the roadways remaining "as close to their natural state as possible."

The Williamsburg Avenue project would consist initially of an improved two-lane road, then later would be widened to four lanes. The parkway will be a four-lane road.