The state Canal Corporation on Friday announced the completion of a construction project to address persistent seepage along the Erie Canal’s earthen embankment in the town of Royalton. With the end of construction, the Erie Canalway Trail in Royalton is fully restored and open for public use again.
The Canal Corporation and its contractors employed new technology by installing a soil-bentonite slurry wall along a 1.3-mile stretch of the 200-year-old earthen embankment under the centerline of the Erie Canalway Trail between Wruck Road and Peet Street.
The original project scope — to mitigate seeps over 1/2-mile — was more than doubled due to funding allocated in the state’s FY 2025 budget for repairs and improvements to critical water impounding infrastructure along the New York State Canal system.
“This project highlights our use of cutting-edge technology to maintain and improve some of our most critical structures, many of which have been around for more than a century, while ensuring the canal system remains open for through-navigation for future generations,” said Brian U. Stratton, Canal Corporation director. “When the original Erie Canal’s construction began more than 200 years ago, it was considered an engineering marvel, and as the Erie Canal has evolved, the technology and innovation surrounding its operation has also advanced.”
Canal Corporation had been monitoring three known seeps, or leaks, along the affected stretch on the north side of the canal in Royalton for a couple of decades. Due to dense vegetation that had grown on the outboard slope of the earthen embankment, the agency’s maintenance staff were unable to fully inspect the stretch for additional seepage. In the spring of 2021, after clearing all vegetation of three inches or less in diameter, 14 additional seeps were uncovered.
Following that discovery, a “filter blanket,” consisting of layers of sand and gravel earthen material, was installed as an interim measure to stabilize the embankment. In addition, Canal Corporation began monitoring flows from the embankment daily. In October 2021, a 176-foot-long limited depth clay cut-off wall was installed along the crest to reduce the flow, after a sinkhole was discovered along the Erie Canalway Trail that sits atop the embankment.
Building upon the initial clay cut-off wall and to further reduce seepage through the earthen embankment, a soil-bentonite slurry wall was installed on the full depth of the embankment, with some places being 30-feet-deep from the trail to bedrock.
Hohl Industrial Services, Inc. of Tonawanda and DeWind of Zeeland, Michigan, did the work using DeWind’s “One-Pass Trenching Technology,” which allowed a trench in the embankment to be excavated while simultaneously mixing the existing, in-place soil with a hydrated bentonite slurry. Once it was cured, the soil-bentonite cut-off wall began providing a permanent underground wall or barrier to water. Utilizing DeWind’s machinery allowed the cut-off wall to be installed without any open excavations or tree removal, while the canal remained watered and navigable, Canal Corporation said.
Earlier this year, the agency’s embankment fortification work was named a Project of the Year, in the historic restoration/preservation category, by the New York State Chapter of American Public Works Association (APWA). The project also received an award from the Western Branch of the New York Chapter of APWA.