Whitfield County Public Works employees have been busy for the past few weeks, installing this huge concrete culvert that will be mostly hidden underneath Beaverdale Road when construction is completed early next month.
photo by Mitch Talley
Whitfield County Public Works employees are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel – literally – as construction continues on a double-sided concrete culvert running underneath Beaverdale Road. Here, Mike Turner inspects a seam where two sections of the concrete culvert are joined together. Each section of the culvert weighs 21,260 pounds and measures 9 feet, 4 inches wide, 6 feet long, and 9 feet, 4 inches high.
photo by Mitch Talley
Craig Springfield of Whitfield County Public Works uses a dozer to spread dirt next to the side of the culvert.
photo by Mitch Talley
Looking at this small pool of water Wednesday morning, you wouldn’t have suspected that runoff from heavy rains last week threatened to climb over the bank of dirt that is temporarily blocking the creek running underneath Beaverdale Road. Before construction of a new double-sided culvert could begin, crews first had to block the water with dirt, then install pumps that automatically kick on when water reaches a certain level and then pump it up and over the road to the other side through eight-inch pipes.
photo by Mitch Talley
Right now, the small pool of water behind a pile of plastic-covered dirt doesn’t seem worthy of such a major construction project.
But when heavy rains hit the area last week, a torrent of runoff water soon filled the creek bed and threatened to climb over the dirt and sandbags blocking its path, where it would have entered a double concrete culvert that’s being installed by Whitfield County Public Works crews under Beaverdale Road.
Wednesday morning, under non-threatening skies, county worker Craig Springfield carefully spread out a layer of dirt with his dozer, then came back driving a compactor to compress the dirt, right next to the nearly 500,000 pounds worth of concrete culvert sections. After other members of the crew brought him more dirt in a dump truck, he did it all over again, a step he will repeat until the road becomes level on each side of the culvert.
“Our guys have done a great job so far on this project,” Public Works Director DeWayne Hunt said. “This was the first time we have attempted such a major construction project, and it has gone extremely well.”
Mr. Hunt decided to have his own crew do the work after putting pencil to paper and discovering that even after rental of major equipment like a 170-ton crane, they could save county taxpayers about $300,000 on the project.
“Our only bid came in around $500,000, and we think we will be able to do it for $200,000,” Mr. Hunt said.
Not only that, but the contractor would have had two months to do the work. On such a major road, which carries thousands of cars each day, that would have quickly become a traffic nightmare for motorists.
Instead, county workers started on the project on Aug. 3, and Mr. Hunt believes the road can be reopened by early September, barring unexpected weather delays.
The grass is still dead where the four legs of the massive crane, which had an 80-foot reach, rested while it carefully lowered the 22 sections of the concrete culvert – each weighing 21,260 pounds - into place.
The culvert replaces a series of rusted-out metal pipes that had begun to sag under the weight of the dirt, asphalt, and traffic above them. In fact, the once-round, now-oval pipes had become such a hazard to traffic that the state Department of Transportation told the county the road would have to be closed until they were replaced.
“Now we’ll have a much better way for the water to cross under Beaverdale Road, and we believe it will last many, many years longer than the old metal pipes,” Mr. Hunt said.
With this one soon to be under their belts, he believes the county may attempt other such projects, depending on the individual circumstances.
“This was a great way to save our county taxpayers a lot of money and reduce the amount of time the road will have to be closed at the same time,” Mr. Hunt said.
He praised all the Public Works crews who have combined their efforts to make the construction a success.
“Each of our sections have a piece of this project,” Mr. Hunt said. “Our right-of-way crew was primarily the construction crew, led by Jimmy Moore, Craig Springfield, and Daniel Morgan, along with their supervisor, Roger Lackey. Our sign crew made detour signs and hung them, and once we’re done with construction, then our paving crew will rock and pave the section of the road that had to be cut out. We had to rent some specialty equipment for this project, ranging from a large crane to a large trac hoe to the special pumps, and the procurement and scheduling of all this to get the right stuff at the right time fell on the Public Works admin staff to coordinate that effort.”