BRIDGE WORK SCHEDULED; CONTRACTOR SOON TO BEGIN ILLINOIS APPROACH

Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City has anchored barges along the Illinois shore before starting work on the Illinois approach span to the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

The bridge will cross the Mississippi River from East Cape Girardeau, Ill., to Cape Girardeau and will replace the existing bridge.

"Right now they are just setting up barges," said Randy Hitt, area engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation. MoDOT is overseeing the bridge project, including the Illinois work.

The barges bringing in equipment will be used as a dock to unload equipment, Hitt said.

Five cranes will be used to set the 10 piers 8 feet deep in bedrock. Hitt said the piers' steel-and-concrete foundations will be anchored solidly in bedrock to withstand a major earthquake.

"Due to the seismic nature of the area, soil would turn to a liquid state during an earthquake," he said.

Building the substructure of the approach will take two years and cost $25.6 million, Hitt said, and that doesn't include the bridge's deck, "just piers and girders."

Even so, the work shouldn't affect current bridge traffic.

Along with the approach work, a Pennsylvania company will perform jet-grouting work on the bedrock at the pier in the middle of the river.

That work, which will cost nearly $3.9 million, will start next week after being halted in December because the bedrock contained fissures and mud seams.

Hitt said the grouting work, which is expected to be completed by Oct. 1, is like a dentist filling a cavity. A water jet is used to clean out the mud seams and loose rock and fill them with a high-strength cement grout mixture.

Hitt said the grouting work should not interfere with barge traffic. The project has Coast Guard permits and "everything has been worked out," he said.