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Test pontoon a "complete success" The Daily World | 24-Apr-2010
Department of Transportation A worker climbs scaffold on the side of a test pontoon at the Satsop Development Park. Work on the test pontoon for the state Route 520 bridge pontoon project recently wrapped up with the final concrete pour last week.
Test pontoon a “complete success”
SATSOP — State Department of Transportation engineers are calling construction of the test pontoon for the state Route 520 Bridge replacement project a “complete success.”
“We’ve learned a tremendous amount,” said Project Engineer Scott Ireland.
Wednesday marked the end of the first phase of the project, which was carried out by Quigg Bros. Construction and the DOT on seven acres at the Satsop Development Park on Fuller Hill.
While some final design aspects of replacing the Evergreen Point Bridge, which spans Lake Washington connecting Seattle and Bellevue, have been more controversial, the progress and advancements in the nitty-gritty engineering science have been greater than expected.
“During the construction of the test pontoon, engineers identified opportunities for improvements in the form system, reinforcing details, concrete placement methods and the concrete mix design,” Ireland said, adding that they were surprised at how much they learned.
“This was essentially a research project intended to find as many problems as possible so we could identify them now, document them and address them in anticipation of the actual pontoon project,” he explained.
The first phase of the project was to construct the test pontoon. During the second phase, construction engineers, technical advisers from the department’s bridge design office and the designer-builder, Kiewit-General Joint Venture, will take a closer look at the completed test pontoon and document and record their observations. Demolition of the test pontoon, the third phase, is scheduled to begin on or before May 6, Ireland said.
Quigg Bros. was awarded the $2.7 million contract with the DOT to do the construction and demolition.
“Over the next two weeks, observations and lessons learned from this testing will be compiled to help facilitate the most efficient construction methods and produce the highest-quality pontoons for the 520 Bridge,” Ireland said.
The new Evergreen Point Bridge’s 33 full-size pontoons — the biggest ever built in the state, each of them 75 feet wide by 360 feet long by 28.5 feet high — will be manufactured in Grays Harbor County. Upon final environmental review, a pontoon casting facility will be built at either the “preferred” site of the former Weyerhaeuser log sorting yard in Aberdeen or the 90-acre alternative site in Hoquiam owned by Anderson & Middleton Co.
The test pontoon constructed at Satsop, while the same height as the actual bridge pontoons, is only half as wide and just a third as long.
“It’s been so fascinating to see the daily progress of the project,” said Tami Garrow, CEO of Satsop Development Park. “We’re so glad we were able to provide the perfect place to help this important project for our county and our state.”
“The Satsop Development Park provided us the access and the lay-down area that we needed to complete the project on such a short time basis,” Ireland said. “We didn’t even have to go through the permitting process because the site was already permitted for this kind of work.”
“It’s exciting for us to play a small part in this big operation that will bring so many new jobs to Grays Harbor,” Garrow added.
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