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| ODOT and Yaquina River Constructors to resume work on U.S. 20 improvement project | ||
| 05/19/2008 | ||
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CORVALLIS –- ODOT announced Monday that work will resume in June on the seven-mile, eight-bridge initiative to straighten Highway 20 between Corvallis and Newport following an agreement reached between the agency and Yaquina River Constructors, the project’s prime contractor. Restarting the massive project in June – engineers estimate more than 4 million cubic yards of earth will be moved to straighten and shave three miles off the current route – means the new alignment across the Coast Range will likely open to traffic in 2011. ODOT and YRC suspended work in July 2007 following the discovery of a series of ancient landslides in areas where plans call for the construction of several bridges. Rather than proceeding with the work on a design-as-you-go basis and risking greatly increased costs, ODOT and YRC elected to suspend the work so they could perform additional geotechnical investigations, apply value engineering principles to the problems and arrive at a mutually agreeable and least-cost solution to the landslide issues. “Our goal since the suspension has been to finish this project as soon as possible and at the lowest cost possible to taxpayers,” said Doug Tindall, ODOT’s deputy director. “The improved section will make it safer for our citizens and increase capacity on a strategic freight route.” Transportation officials will employ a technique known as “buttressing” to stabilize the enormous landslides in areas where the highway and its bridges will span the soggy Coast Range. “Think of a buttress as a doorstop,” said ODOT Project Manager Joe Squire. “In your office, you might have a 200-hundred-pound door that is held immobile by a half-pound rubber doorstop.” The trick, Squire said, is to use the doorstop as a device that simply transfers the potential energy from the door into an immovable object -- with a doorstop, that object is the floor. In the project area, ODOT and the contractor will use hillsides and bedrock.  After spending months mapping the landslides and designing creative solutions to stabilize and build on those landslides, ODOT and YRC officials estimate the additional cost to finish the project through the landslide areas will be about $47 million, which is less than the $61 million estimated for the landslide mitigation work before the project was suspended. These additional funds will be paid to YRC in addition to the original contract amount of $129.9 million. YRC will contribute between $8 million and $12 million to the additional landslide mitigation work. That figure will depend upon when the project is completed. ODOT will hold a separate reserve fund in the amount of approximately $23 million for contingencies such as fuel, materials and labor inflation. Since the landslide issues arose in late 2006, ODOT has been accruing savings from other projects and programs to fund the additional costs to complete the project. The agency anticipates the project can be completed without affecting other state highway projects. By restarting the project this year, ODOT and YRC estimate the savings to be in the $10 million to $15 million range due to overhead and escalating fuel and materials costs. As one of the most significant cost savings going forward, ODOT will assume its traditional responsibility of project inspection and environmental compliance. When the project began in 2006, ODOT required YRC to hire a firm to handle those responsibilities. By assuming these responsibilities and placing expert ODOT inspection staff on site, the agency will be able to directly control the implementation and maintenance of all permit requirements including storm water management and in-water work compliance. As part of the expanded scope of work to stabilize landslides, ODOT has been working with various regulatory agencies to update the project’s environmental permits. These updates should be completed and revised permits should be issued by mid-June. Both ODOT and YRC have worked hard to protect the environment following the storm water violations in 2006. This cooperative and intensive approach has resulted in an exemplary record of storm water management over the very wet winter and consequently earned ODOT and YRC some hard-won credibility with regulators. # # ODOT # #
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