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Engineer: Bridge project ahead of schedule |
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Friday, 10 July 2009 |
By KAREN CAMPBELL
Assistant Managing Editor
The Harrison Street Bridge project is ahead of schedule, Auglaize County Engineer Doug Reinhart said this week.
“The weather has been tremendous for construction,” Reinhart said. “There have been no lost work days so we’ve been able to continue to move ahead with the schedule.”
He said steel trusses could be delivered as soon as the end of the month, which also is ahead of schedule. So much so, crews may not even be ready for them.
Construction on the bridge started June 1. It is expected to be completed by the first week of November with no penalties.
“We’re still a long way away, but now we’re two to three weeks ahead of schedule,” Reinhart said. “That can all change when you’re working in the river.
“Three inches of rain in Westminster (a village in Allen County) can put the project out of commission for a week,” he said.
Low flows in the river have kept the ground dry so no water seeps in, allowing crews to work faster and with less effort required to keep conditions dry.
“The sooner we’re up and out of the water in case it floods, the better,” Reinhart said. “High water could set the project back a week to two weeks.
“We can’t predict what will happen several months from now, things can change,” he said, “but we haven’t had to fight any water yet.”
Reinhart said two different crews for Brumbaugh Construction, of Arcanum, are working on the project, basically treating it as two different projects going on simultaneously – one a street reconstruction and one the construction of a new bridge replacing a 45-year-old bridge built in 1964.
The main sanitary sewer line is underway and the new storm sewer line is slated to follow its completion.
Crews ran into a bit of a snag with a sanitary sewer line running diagonally through the project. Reinhart said they are taking extra steps to ensure that it is not structurally damaged and no weight whatsoever is placed on it.
Some storm and sanitary sewers also were at the same level. Reinhart said they are being separated by specially built catch basins to prevent any cross connections.
Pointing to broken beams from the old bridge, Reinhart said residents may not have understood why they were so concerned about the bridge’s structural integrity, but inside the beams are hollow, filled only with the cardboard form they were made around.
Solid concrete is too heavy for the structure and its weight alone would require bridges to be posted with weight restrictions, Reinhart said.
He said 12 years ago when crews set to work replacing a sidewalk on Harrison Street Bridge, they couldn’t find any good concrete to tie it to, so they began efforts to replace the bridge.
“We hope this time it will last a lot longer,” Reinhart said, hoping for 50 years.
The east abutment for the new bridge is complete and work is to be underway shortly on the west abutment.
Old beams and walls are to be shattered and the pieces used to prevent erosion before stone is hauled in and placed on top.
Neighboring properties are to be protected throughout the project with them left better than when the project started, Reinhart said.
He said owners of those properties have been great to work with.
The $1.98 million combined county and city project is being paid for largely out of state and federal grant money, with the entire portion of the county’s share covered and the city of Wapakoneta only responsible for $50,000.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 13 July 2009 )
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