BRIDGE RISING FROM MURKY MISSISSIPPI

The $100 million-plus Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River to connect Cape Girardeau to Southern Illinois, is scheduled to be completed by 2003. The Missouri Department of Transportation says the project is 15 percent done.

The last four years have seen massive concrete supports climbing from the gray water, with spans beginning from both shores and intended to meet over the center of the river.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the bridge was in July 1996. The first of three contracts to build the structure was awarded early that same month to Flat Iron Structures Co. LLC of Longmont, Colo., for $50.8 million. This contract included constructing the main cable stay section of the bridge.

Construction began in September 1996, with the clearing of land for one of the support piers on the Missouri side of the river -- this 60-by-100-by-12-foot tower would require 10.4 million pounds of concrete and 550,000 pounds of reinforced steel in April 1997.

Construction of the Illinois side of the bridge began in November 1996, with Richard Excavation of Golconda, Ill., clearing the land for the approach to Illinois Route 146 in East Cape Girardeau, Ill. Richardson Excavation's $2.2 million contract included compacting and strengthening the soil beneath the Illinois bridge approach and relocating existing electrical lines. This phase of the project was completed in 1997.

Project setback

In December 1997, work came to a complete stop when it was discovered that fissures in the river bedrock threatened the structural integrity of the bridge. Because of this setback, Flat Iron Structures bowed out of the project, with only a fraction of the main bridge work complete.

Six months later, work resumed with the Nicholson Construction Co. of Bridgeville, Penn., reinforcing the riverbed with a process called "jet-grouting" -- in which high-pressure water is used to clean out the mud in the seams in the bedrock and is replaced with a high-strength cement grout. The process, completed in January 2000, cost $3.9 million.

In July 1998, work was delayed by high river water, and construction equipment on the Illinois side was moved back to a safe distance.

Bridge construction came to a standstill again in May 1999 due to high river water. On the Illinois side, equipment had to be moved again.

In March 2000, a $53.7 million contract was awarded to Traylor Bros. Inc. of Evansville, Ind., to complete two of the bridge's piers and to install support cables, the bridge deck, roadway, and decorative lights.

Back on track

Missouri Department of Transportation area engineer Stan Johnson said the project is now back on track after weathering the bedrock and flood delays.

"Since Traylor has taken over, they've done real good," he said. "They know what they're doing. In the last year or so, we've gotten pretty much back on go for the 2003 opening."

Johnson said he considers the scope of the project awesome.

"The scale is much bigger than what we usually do. MoDOT pours concrete every day," he said. "We're used to that. But with the bridge, it's pours of at least a thousand yards of concrete a day."

Through multiple support cables and the reinforced, jet-grouted foundation, the 4,000-foot long, 100-foot wide Emerson bridge is resistant to an earthquake of an 8.5 Richter magnitude, says MoDOT.

A magnitude 8.5 earthquake is capable of tremendous damage. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, blamed for 700 deaths, was calculated as a 7.9 magnitude quake.

MoDOT estimates that 14,000 vehicles cross the current Mississippi River bridge every day. By 2015, this volume is expected to increase to 26,000 vehicles daily. The current bridge was built in 1927. It is planned to be demolished in 2003 or 2004, after the Emerson Bridge is completed.

Bill Emerson was a U.S. representative for the 8th Congressional District of Missouri. He died in June 1996, weeks before the state awarded the first bridge construction contract.

Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge facts: * 60,000 cubic yards of concrete (243,688,500 pounds)

* 13 million pounds of reinforced steel

* 15 million pounds of steel girders

* 171 miles of cable

Source: Missouri Department of Transportation