I have contacted Knox County Department of Engineering and Public Works about the closure of Bluegrass Road at Mourfield Road. It is on day three of the closing. Here is the statement from the department,
Knox County Engineering and Public Works working on March 8, 2018 (3 days into closing)
As most of you know, we had another sinking issue with Bluegrass Rd. that fell outside of our recent repair. We had to close the road again due to the unsafe nature. We did involve our consultant geo-technical firm S&ME for advice in cause and repair. At S&ME’s direction we dug the area down approximately 18’ and did not find a sinkhole throat or cavern. The ground was saturated down to that depth. There are a couple of storm pipes under Bluegrass at this location that are fairly old and it appears that one of the pipes has been leaking over time. This area takes on a lot of drainage and we feel that with these two factors caused the road to sag.
At this point we have installed several loads of shot rock, rip rap and gravel along with geo-textile fabric (again at S&ME’s direction) to what is known as an inverted filter to mitigate the problem. This technique is a common successful practice when dealing with sinkholes or karst features. Keep in mind, it was inconclusive that this is a sinkhole but we are treating it as such. We have replaced the old storm pipes with new pipes as well. We will be finishing bringing up the base stone this afternoon (March 8, 2018) and possibly first thing in the morning (March 9, 2018). Our goal is to pave the roadway tomorrow (March 9, 2018) and reopen before the weekend if all goes well.
I have several folks working on this issue as it is priority one to get Bluegrass Rd. reopened quickly and make it safe for motorists.
