By the end of the week, the Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC) is hoping to get Paint Creek flowing again beneath Wood Trail in Oxford Township, but the severely damaged road will remain closed to traffic until a permanent fix can be implemented.

This week, a contractor was expected to begin working at the site of the massive sinkhole that opened up Feb. 24-25 on Wood Trail, near the Polly Ann Trail, following the collapse of a corrugated metal pipe culvert.

“They hope to start Wednesday, if we can get the water drawn down and the weather’s cooperative,” said Darryl M. Heid, the RCOC’s director of highway maintenance, on Monday. “They’re going to try to access the failed part and open it up, so the water can flow through the culvert like it should be doing.”

“If everything goes well, they think it will probably take two to three days (once they get started) to get that opened,” he noted.

Once the culvert is open and the water flowing, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality wants to inspect it, according to Heid.

RCOC Spokesman Craig Bryson stressed, “The scope of this contract is simply to remove the clog, or the failed portion of the culvert.”

At this point, it’s not about replacing the culvert or rebuilding the road. When this job is finished, Bryson there will still be a “big hole” in Wood Trail.

When the culvert collapsed, it caused the dirt above it to give way and form a large, water-filled hole along the east side of the road. It was discovered and reported Feb. 24.

As a result, the portion of Wood Trail between Watersmeet Dr. and Chesnut Ct. has been closed to through-traffic.

As the hours passed following the sinkhole’s discovery, the dirt beneath Wood Trail slowly gave way, causing the asphalt surface to sag as it lost more and more of its support. Finally, at approximately 12:30 p.m. Feb. 25, the pavement buckled and fell into the water, more than doubling the size of the hole.

While all this was happening, water that was no longer able to flow eastward through the damaged culvert had already begun to back up and flood the area to the west of Wood Trail and the Polly Ann Trail. The water in this flooded area, adjacent to some homes in the River Walk subdivision, was originally estimated by officials to be about 20 feet deep.

With the water encroaching upon these homeowners’ properties, the road commission hired a company that brought in five large, diesel-powered pumps to lower the level of the flooded area and move the water to where the creek typically flows when the culvert is functioning properly.

This water comes from the Oxford Multi-Lakes Dam, which is operated by the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner’s (WRC) Office. The dam controls the lake levels for Tan, Squaw, Cedar, Clear, Long and Mickelson lakes.

Bryson said getting the water moving again beneath Wood Trail is “step one in the bigger picture” of working toward a solution.

“The road will remain closed, but the water will be able to flow, so we won’t need to use the pumps (anymore). There won’t be a threat of flooding upstream,” he said.

Bryson noted the RCOC’s “engineering department is working on a design for a replacement (culvert), which will probably be a much larger cement culvert to replace the metal culvert.”

To help keep the water in the flood area from rising anymore than it already had, the WRC shut down the Multi-Lakes Dam on Feb. 25 and it remained completely closed until the rain and snow Oxford received on March 1 required opening it.

“We do have it open about 2 inches right now,” said Edward Thick, supervisor of construction support and maintenance for the WRC, on Monday morning.

Thick previously explained it’s a “balancing act” making sure that none of the residential properties upstream or downstream from the dam get flooded because of the restricted flow caused by the failed culvert.

In anticipation of the dam opening due to the heavy precipitation, two more pumps were brought to the scene and put to work alongside the other five.

Thanks to them, things seem to be okay with the dam open. “It looks like we’ve kind of got it (on a) pretty even keel right now – whatever we’re letting out, they’re easily taking care of,” Thick said.

“We’re actually in good shape,” he noted.