I-26 Connector French Broad drilling platforms to be installed later this month
ASHEVILLE – Geotechnical drilling operations for preliminary work on the Interstate 26 Connector project will begin along the French Broad River between the Jeff Bowen Bridge and Pearson Road Bridge next week, the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced Sept. 23.
Work on two 9-foot-wide platforms will begin Sept. 30 and the platforms will remain in the water for about three months and have attached safety equipment to alert river users, the NCDOT said in a Sept. 23 news release. Crews from RK&K Civil Engineering and geotechnical engineering company S&ME will place the two mobile drill platforms in the river.
An example image of a mobile drilling platform.
The drilling operations are being conducted as part of the design phase of the I-26 Connector project, where the work is required to “complete the design of the bridge,” the NCDOT news release said. The drill platforms will be in the river during the day and then moved to the riverbank at night.
The drilling operations will determine the condition and elevation of the rock around the proposed bridge foundations, where the team will drill a hole about six-to-eight inches in diameter that will extend “about 50 feet below the stream bed,” the news release said.
The I-26 Connector project is a $1.3 billion N.C. Department of Transportation project, where contractors will design a median-divided freeway, accessible only by interchanges, which will connect I-26 in southwest Asheville to U.S. 19/23/70 throughout northwest Asheville. The $1.15 billion contract awarded to Archer-Wright Joint Venture is the largest design-bid contract in NCDOT history, the Citizen Times reported in May.
The project has required an extensive right of way process, which has impacted some businesses along the French Broad River. The popular music venue Salvage Station said it will lose its property along the river to eminent domain, the Citizen Times reported in May.
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Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected]. Consider supporting this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: I-26 Connector to install drilling platforms in the French Broad
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