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At more than 80 years old, the Batchellerville Bridge in Edinburg, N.Y., is long past its prime, says Mike Gray, construction supervisor with the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT).

For years, the Batchellerville Bridge has faithfully connected the two halves of Edinburg, but to get from one side of the community to the other, travelers must contend with a 15-ton weight restriction and only one lane across the bridge. This is “inconvenient since the bridge is 3,100 feet long,” Gray explains.

The Batchellerville Bridge is the only bridge that crosses 26-mile-long Great Sacandaga Lake. NYSDOT realized that it was critical to replace the aging structure sooner than later because without the bridge, residents, emergency responders and school buses must travel a 40-mile route around the lake to get to the other side of town.

NYSDOT’s decision to erect the replacement bridge next to the existing one allows travelers to continue to use the original bridge while the new one is under construction, ensuring continued mobility, Gray notes.

Steel Girder Replacement

Harrison & Burrowes Bridge Constructors Inc. won the $46 million contract in July 2010. By summer 2011, the Glenmont, N.Y.-based contractor should have all of the foundations and most of the substructure complete. In 2012, crews will complete the substructures and set the steel. Next, the company will form and pour the deck and complete the roadway approaches by summer 2013, which is when the 3,108-foot, two-lane bridge will open to the public, Gray estimates. Demolition of the existing bridge will begin in fall 2013.

“For the most part, it’s a conventional steel girder bridge,” Gray describes. “The existing bridge has 21 spans, but this one will only have 13. The foundations are cast-in-place piles with a standard footing and two-column pier design, so it’s a fairly straightforward bridge. The challenging thing about it is its length, which is why it’s so expensive and will take so long to complete.”

NYSDOT is confident Harrison & Burrowes has the experience and skill sets required to complete such a complicated and crucial project.

“They’ve had very challenging bridge contracts with the department in the past, so they are certainly organized to handle a job like this very well,” Gray says. “Additionally, their management is very good.”

Rising to the Occasion

Harrison & Burrowes co-owner and CEO Jeff DiStefano says this is the largest project the company has undertaken to date. “We will highlight this project as part of our main portfolio,” he stresses. “It’s not for the faint of heart. But I think all of our guys have risen to the occasion and will bring this big project home in a timely and profitable fashion. We are not afraid to step up to any challenges.”

The substructure on the new Batchellerville Bridge calls for seven-foot-thick and 19-by-35-foot footings, which requires a mass placement of concrete and careful control of the curing temperatures, Gray points out. Harrison & Burrowes does have a concrete batch plant on site, but getting the concrete from one side to the other will not be easy.

“We put an existing concrete pump pipe out on the structure and pumped to a boom pump out on the water,” DiStefano explains. “As we get further out into the middle of a lake, it might become an issue pumping 1,500 to 1,800 feet. So, we’re currently doing some engineering work to see how we can utilize the existing structure based on its proximity to the new bridge. DOT said we could shut the old bridge down for five minutes at a time, but traffic volumes might allow for 15 minutes.”

Uncooperative Weather

Weather conditions have made it difficult to maintain the schedule.

“After a very dry summer, we were hoping for a pretty dry fall, and that’s not what we got,” DiStefano says. “It’s quite a watershed, and the lake reservoir came up to historical levels during the time of year we were trying to work in [September to November]. The water came up shortly after the cells were built and forced us to move out into the lake a little further.

“We built two more cofferdams with the hopes the water would go down,” he continues. “We hoped we could go back to the first two cells and get those built, but we weren’t able to before the cold weather set in.

“During the winter, the Hudson River [authorities] will be letting water out of the lake to control the elevation of the Hudson River and feed power dams between our project and the Hudson River in Glen Falls, so the water should be down when we resume the work in February.” Throughout January and February, Harrison & Burrowes was building cofferdams and driving piles.

“How is this possible in the frozen tundra?” DiStefano asks. “It will take some doing, but I think we can break enough ice to access the work. We have an excavator on a sectional barge and can access the work that way.”

‘Exceptional Contractors’

Another interesting factor about the project, Gray admits, is that NYSDOT had an alternate foundation design for contractors to choose from; this other option involved drilled shafts.

“The low bidder did not choose that option, but we did include it in hopes that we didn’t rule anything out,” he says. “We wanted to put something in that was structurally equivalent but might be cheaper, so we gave the bidders two different options.

“Of the six bidders we had, five bid cast-in-place piles and one bid the drilled shafts,” he adds.

For this particular project, DiStefano confirms that utilizing drilled shafts would have been too costly. Aside from being the lower bidder, he explains that the company had a number of competitive advantages that put it ahead of the other bidders.

“The people we bid against didn’t have the floating capability we have and the crane power,” he remarks.

The subcontractors working on the Batchellerville Bridge replacement are another advantage.

“The cofferdam/pile driver and our rebar fabricator are exceptional contractors,” DiStefano says. “They are very dependable, very safe, very efficient and very productive. It’s a great combination having those two guys working together. The harmony or esprit de corps has been outstanding.”

This sense of harmony has extended into the community. “Where we are working, the local people have been very welcoming and very helpful in every aspect they could be,” DiStefano notes. “From the volunteer fire department to the real estate people, it’s just been a breath of fresh air to have local people come along and offer to help out in any way they can.”