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Vol. XV • No. 5
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.”
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Your Ohio Connection: Ed Bryden, Strongsville, OH • 1-800-810-7640
Type-A Contract Awarded for Landslide Repairs By Linda J. Hutchinson CEG CORRESPONDENT
On Feb. 10 Stable Construction Company (SCC) of Painesville, OH, was staging equipment to begin a soil nailing and rock scaling project to stabilize a landslide in northeast Ohio when the emergency call came in. This was to be the company’s first project with the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). Jack Hiller, vice president and construction manager of SCC quickly mobilized a crew and its equipment was relocated to a rock slide on U.S. Route 35E, about six mi. east of the Ross County/Jackson County line near Caves Road in southern Ohio. This second slide had occurred at 4:00 a.m. and had toppled boulders onto a tractortrailer rig causing extensive damage to the fuel tank, fuel lines, and axles. “It took a while to clean up because of the fuel spilled on the ice and snow,” said Kathleen Fuller, ODOT district 9 public information officer. The driver was not injured. Contract pricing was already in place for the first project enabling ODOT to issue a Type-A emergency contract to begin work at the U.S. 35E site on Feb. 17, according to Hiller. “We’re a union shop,” said Hiller. Pricing is somewhat standardized according to the height, rate of slope and length of the rock wall or hillside to be repaired. He estimated the overall cost for the emergency repairs to be about $45,000.
Stable Construction Company uses soil nailing for its emergency stabilizing of the rock slope on U.S. Route 35E in southern Ohio.
The scope-of-work includes repairs to “the ledge and hillside adjacent to U.S. 35 following a rock slide that occurred between the 6 and 7-mi. markers of the route’s eastbound lanes,” according to an ODOT press release. ODOT’s engineers and geologists determined that other rocks or boulders along the hillside may be unstable and should be removed. “Our team of construction engineers and highway management staff have been working as quickly as possible to expedite this project and restore the route to two lanes of traffic, and we are pleased that the contrac-
tors will begin working immediately,” said James A. Brushart, ODOT district 9 director. The amount of rain that has fallen across Ohio this winter, along with near recordbreaking snowfalls, are thought to be the cause of the landslide. “We’ve had freezing and thawing in the past few weeks, and that’s usually when we see slips like this happen,” said Fuller. According to SCC’s President Hiller, soil nailing has been in use in various parts of the United States and around the world since the 1950s. The process involves drilling into soft soil, or soft rock such as shale or sandstone,
until the drill reaches into the harder rock below. Then an epoxy rebar is inserted into the drilled hole and the hole is pumped full of a non-shrinking grout. A staggered pattern of soil nailing holes are drilled up to 25 ft. (7.6 m) apart to stabilize the softer top layer of rocks that are often loosened by soil erosion or the kinds of freeze-thaw patterns Ohio has experienced much of this winter. “It’s a quick repair,” said Hiller. “We can usually do a 300 ft. slope in two to three days. The process is non-invasive and there is no excavation required. Unless the area will be covered with a wire mesh drape, there is no grubbing involved.” Grubbing is the removal of trees and other vegetation along a hillside or cliff. The U.S. 35E repair involves approximately 500 ft. (152 m) of slope that reaches vertically about 100 ft. (30.5 m). The repair calls for them to incorporate both soil nailing and rock scaling. To accomplish the scaling operation, Hiller’s five-person crew staged their tool trailer at the base of the slope and brought in a rented air compressor and generator. “A standard four to five person crew climbs to the top of the slope, with a foreman-operator and laborer on the ground at the bottom,” said Hiller. When the crew has reached the top, they tie themselves off and then rappel down the face of the slope using a spud bar and other hand tools to chink away at the loose rocks. When there is enough room under or around see LANDSLIDE page 6
ODOT Begins Construction on New West 77th Street Bridge The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) began a $1.5 million project to replace the aging West 77th Street Bridge over the Greater Cleveland Region Transit Authority (GCRTA) and Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks in the city of Cleveland Jan. 11. Crews closed the W. 77th Street Bridge between Wakefield and Madison Avenues. Over the next several months, West 77th Street will remain closed as crews work to construct shelters to protect the GCRTA tracks below, demolish the existing bridge and construct a new, two lane bridge. This design also will include a sidewalk for pedestrians on each side.
Traffic will be detoured via West 74th Street. The bridge is schedule to be completed and open to the public in June 2011. During construction, motorists will notice signs at this construction site, announcing “Putting America to Work: Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” Similar orange-and-green signs have been erected when work begins at stimulus-funded projects across Ohio. As of the end of November 2009, ODOT and its local transportation partners have awarded construction contracts on 180 stimulus-funded projects, worth $472 million. These
projects include major interstate upgrades, bridge modernizations, and local roadway improvements. In addition, investments also have been made in the state’s urban and rural transit agencies — with the purchase of new buses and the start of construction on new transit facilities — and in the state’s airports. All companies awarded ODOT contracts funded by Recovery Act resources are required to post any new job opportunities at www.OhioMeansJobs.com, an online source to match job seekers with employment openings across the state.