KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

About 30 feet of the asphalt path along Riverside Drive in Salem was washed away on Saturday, along with a lot of newly applied grass seed.

The stretch of the Roanoke River Greenway that runs along East Riverside Drive in Salem, now in its seventh month of construction, just can't seem to catch a break.

On Saturday, one day after a city inspection of the trail and two days before the Virginia Department of Transportation was due to evaluate it, heavy rains brought the river up and over its banks onto the greenway.

Will Simpson, a Salem engineer, said this is the fifth time since construction began in August that the $470,000 project has been stymied by weather.

Floodwaters tore about 30 feet of asphalt from the pathway, scattered a portion of newly placed grass seed and straw, and left debris and thick mud along the trail.

City Engineer Chuck Van Allman said Monday that part of the problem is the grass that has been planted and replanted about three times now hasn't had a chance to develop a root mat that would bind the soil and make it less susceptible to heavy moisture.

"I've never seen the river flow so high and for so long," he said. "It's not letting the grass grow, not giving it a chance to establish roots."

Winter's heavy snowfall has left the ground so saturated, he explained, the water has nowhere to go.

"We're just trying to find that one-month or two-month time when it doesn't flood," he said.

The weekend flooding, which was relatively minor compared with a November storm that damaged about 300 feet of the trail, affected about one-fourth of the half-acre of land that was seeded just last week.

Simpson estimated the cost of the damage at about $750 to $1,000, and said most of that cost was for labor.

VDOT went ahead with its scheduled inspection Monday afternoon, but Simpson said that despite the damage, feedback was largely positive.

"They were actually impressed with how well the trail held up," he said, adding that he was hopeful the project contractor could finish repairs in time for the trail to officially open next week.

"We want to get this thing done," he said. "People are already using it."

The engineers say they're learning from the problems and will apply those lessons as they finish the current phase of construction and move on to subsequent stretches of greenway -- which could become part of a valleywide, uninterrupted trail that would run from Roanoke County, through Salem and Roanoke. They're still mulling over using a different type of grass seed or switching from asphalt to concrete at troubled spots on the trail.

"A concrete pad may be the best option. It's going to be thicker than asphalt so water would have to dig deeper to get underneath it," Simpson said.

Van Allman said that for the money spent on reseeding this year, concrete barriers could have been placed along the shore to keep the water back.

"But hindsight's 20/20," he added.