Crawford
County, Meramec River, Sappington Bridge, Crawford County,
Missouri
Great River Engineering was selected to
provide engineering services for the construction of
a bridge over Meramec River in Crawford County.
The existing
structure was a old 250-feet truss bridge which had
been closed by the Missouri Department of Transportation.
The closure of this bridge had a significant
impact on local residents for access to work and emergency
vehicle access.
The closure of this bridge resulted
in a detour length of 30-mile to get to town.
Therefore,
it was imperative that the bridge be designed and constructed
in as timely a manner as possible.
Great River Engineering was selected as the engineer
to design and perform construction inspection for this
project with a goal to have the project ready for construction
within one year.
There were several obstacles which
had to be overcome.
The first was to obtain historical
clearance for the old bridge since it was eligible
to be on the national register of historic places.
This
information was coordinated with the State Historic Preservation
Officer and all necessary documentation was completed
and approved.
The next obstacle was to obtain all
necessary environmental permits.
Due to the nature of the
river and surrounding forest, several endangered species
were noted by the Missouri Department of Conservation
and United States Fish and Wildlife Agency.
Through several
correspondence and site meetings we were able to
obtain the required permits.
The next issue was to since a
portion of the bridge was located on property owned by
the State of Missouri, Great River Engineering prepared
the necessary right-of-way documents and submitted those
to the State Legislature to pass a house bill and senate
bill to allow the right-of-way document to be forward
to the Governor for signing.
This was achieved and allowed
us to proceed to the construction phase. /p>
Great River Engineering was able to complete these task
along with the engineering design of the new bridge
within the one year schedule.
The new bridge is a 275-foot
long prestressed concrete bulb tee girder bridge which
provides a 24-foot roadway.
The new bridge was placed
on a new alignment to improve roadway approach safety.
The bridge was opened to traffic on
December 2002, 6-months after the construction began.
