The upper waterfall at the top of West Liberty Boulevard isn't coming back as a waterfall. At its September 16 meeting, DuBois City Council voted to replace it with a decorative stone wall. The estimate is $7,000 to $8,000, and the vote depends on signed agreements for donated labor from Dave Roman Excavating and Landscape One. Under the revised plan, the upper section would be stabilized with no running water.
The pit drivers see at Routes 219 and 255 has been through a year of failure, teardown and, since June 2026, shrinking estimates. Over that stretch the project changed from restoring a landmark to holding up a hillside. The start date depends less on council than on how wet the ground is.
The Hill Moved Before the Water Stopped
The waterfalls came out of a 2022 project to improve the Liberty Boulevard embankment at Liberty Boulevard and East DuBois Avenue. That project was planned as a "mini park" with retaining walls, benches, lighting, paved parking and railing. GantNews reported construction was underway by April 6, 2022. The roughly $800,000 often linked to the waterfall paid for the whole embankment project, which used Community Development Block Grant funds. Public Works Director Scott Farrell has said that original cost covered two waterfalls and the redevelopment of the hill.
The trouble surfaced in 2025, when a resident raised concerns that the upper structure was shifting forward. Farrell said then that the cause was unknown. A torn liner or water moving the mud were both possibilities, and gravel could be seen falling behind the stone. By August 13, 2025, WTAJ reported the structure was temporarily closed and the sidewalk to the top section was taped off.
A year later, Farrell gave council a clearer account. The soil under the upper waterfall had started to give way, and the vertical wall leaned toward the slope above the Liberty Boulevard intersection. That explanation matters for everything that followed. The failure was in the ground behind the stone. The water feature was simply the part that sat on top of it.
Why the Cause Is Hard to Pin Down
Under Farrell's orders, city crews took the upper waterfall apart quickly once it became a clear safety risk. The wall looked close to collapsing, which could have hurt someone at the waterfall or sent rocks down the hill into the intersection. Before the crews removed the stones, they numbered and documented each one so the wall could be rebuilt more easily.
That quick takedown also limited what anyone could learn afterward. The engineering firm Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, known as HRG, reviewed the site with a focus on moving forward safely, not on deciding who or what was responsible. With the structure already disassembled, HRG could only determine so much. Farrell told council the original project's engineering was done in-house by the city engineer at the time, and that soil studies would have been outside that scope.
So the question of accountability keeps coming up. The question of whether the city would hold the original contractor accountable also came up, but officials said the cause and any recourse were unclear. At the September 16 meeting, residents again asked why tax money was going into the wall. Councilmember Bill Beers answered that a previous city government made the mess and the current council is cleaning it up. He added that the engineer was a city employee at the time and not an outside firm.
How a $100,000 Restoration Became a $7,000 Wall
Once rebuilding the water feature came off the table, the cost fell. Here is how the estimates moved through 2026:
- June 2026. Outgoing interim city manager Ben Kafferlin told council that members had individually shown interest in repairing the waterfall. He put the full project at $100,000, including about $50,000 for concrete alone. That concrete total was more than the city's sidewalk concrete agreement allows, so the work would have to be competitively bid. No municipal grants had been found, and the project wasn't in the 2026 budget.
- Mid-2026. City officials looked at private donations, recreation fund money and donated labor. Mayor Barry Abbott said Beau Caldwell of Landscape One, who built the original waterfall, had agreed to donate all of his crew's labor. Abbott also said Dave Roman had committed trucks, employees and heavy equipment.
- August 2026. Bids for repairing the hole opened, and council still hadn't chosen between a new waterfall and a plain stone wall. Councilmember Mike Piccirillo mentioned a $110,000 figure and worried that even that amount could grow.
- September 2. Council reviewed a tentative proposal for a stepped boulder retaining wall that removes the water feature. Public Works Director Scott Farrell estimated materials at $10,000 to $15,000, with city labor not included. Councilmember Sam Mollica said, "I think $10,000 is a nice price to fill that hole in to make it look great."
- September 16. Council voted for the stone wall at an estimated $7,000 to $8,000 and stressed that the figure is an estimate.
The two September numbers don't measure the same thing. The first counted materials before labor. The second came with the condition that donated-labor contracts be signed. Neither should be read as a final price.
The wall also isn't a new idea. While explaining the funding options, Kafferlin described what the city had originally planned to do with the site:
"Cash is tight, you have to be disciplined, and so this is not a budgeted project. We had just anticipated putting the boulders back up where they were and not recreating the waterfall."
After a summer of talk about a full restoration, council approved something very close to that original plan.
What Actually Goes Into the Pit
The city's September project document reads like a slope repair. Crews would pump out the standing water and remove the silt and debris from the existing vault. The vault is about 10 feet wide, 35 feet long and 5 feet deep. It would be filled with about 100 tons of 2A limestone, placed and compacted in 8-inch layers to make a stable base. After that come erosion-control fabric, drainage and a six-course boulder wall backfilled with 2B stone.
The shape of the wall answers the way the old one failed. The original upper wall stood vertically and leaned once the soil gave way. The new design sets six rows back into the hillside like a staircase. Farrell explained it to WTAJ this way: "The stones will be set back more like stairs so people can sit on them and stuff like that. So all the weights lean it back. It's not straight up."
Abbott sees the seating question another way. He wants a fence and signage around the wall so people don't climb or sit on the stones and get hurt. The lower waterfall was still working when GantNews photographed both tiers in June 2026.
Still Unsettled as of Early October
As of October 4, 2026, no city document or local news report dated after September 17 has given an update on the project. That leaves several open items:
- Labor contracts. Council requires signed agreements with Dave Roman Excavating and Landscape One before work begins. WJAC reported on September 17 that the contracts were not yet finalized.
- The fence. The fence was left out of the vote, and council plans to research prices later. Farrell expects the city would want the same style of fence now used at the end of Liberty Boulevard, installed by a fencing company to limit liability. He warned council about cost creep: "I don't want you to say we said it was going to be $7,000 to $8,000 and it comes back at $14,000."
- The ground. In early September, Farrell said the hillside was too saturated for heavy equipment, and that construction can't go ahead until the ground dries out or freezes.
The last item will probably decide when the work happens. The hill failed because of soil and water, and the repair has to wait on the same soil and water. Through the fall, the clearest sign of progress will be equipment at the top of West Liberty Boulevard, and that depends on dry weather or a hard freeze.
At Nelson Realty, we follow projects like this one because they're part of what living in DuBois looks like day to day. If you have questions about how city projects near your street could come up when you sell, or you'd like a free home valuation based on what's actually happening around your property, our team is happy to talk.
