The Missouri Department of Transportation hopes for smooth sailing this year on construction of the Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau now that a bedrock problem in the middle of the river has been addressed.

A Pennsylvania contractor in January completed jet grouting work to repair mud seams in the bedrock of a pier site in the river at a cost of about $8 million. That has cleared the way for construction to begin this year on the main span of the cable-stay Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

A contract for the main span is slated to be awarded in March with construction to begin by this summer, said Randy Hitt, MoDOT area engineer.

The contractor will have to complete an unfinished pier on the Missouri shore as well as construct the pier in the middle of the river as part of the main span work.

The Missouri shore pier will be 180 feet taller when it is completed, Hitt said. It could take most of this year to complete the pier.

The pier has stood unfinished since the original contractor, Flatiron Structures bowed out of the project in 1997 after the bedrock problem was discovered. Flatiron had completed about 18 percent of its work when it pulled out under an agreement with MoDOT.

Construction of the main span is expected to take three years to complete, said Hitt. The work includes the hanging of steel cables that support the main span as well as erection of girders and deck panels. Roadway and decorative lighting will be done as part of the work on the main span.

"It will draw a lot of attention when we get the pier topped off and start hanging cable off it," Hitt said.

The entire bridge project is expected to cost over $100 million, which includes more than $25 million for the Illinois approach work.

Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City is finishing work on the piers and girders along the Illinois shore for the bridge approach.

Two more construction contracts remain to be awarded in addition to the main span. Those involve construction of the bridge deck on the Illinois approach and extending new Highway 74 eastward from its current dead-end at Sprigg Street to connect with the new span. That work likely would proceed in 2002.

At the height of construction, as many as 70 people may be working on the bridge project, Hitt said.

The entire bridge project should be completed by June 2003, he said.

When finished, Cape Girardeau will be served by a four-lane Missouri highway linking Interstate 55 to the new four-lane bridge. On the Illinois side the roadway will narrow to two lanes, Hitt said.

The new bridge will be the first in the Midwest to include sensitive state-of-the-art equipment designed to measure the impact of earthquakes. Cape Girardeau's bridge will be the first cable-stay span to be outfitted with such equipment.

MoDOT plans to demolish the old two-lane river bridge once the new structure is in place. The old bridge was constructed in 1928. It could be demolished in 2004, Hitt said.

The state plans to award a contract for the demolition work. "Most likely the bridge will become the demolition contractor's, and he can sell the iron for scrap metal," said Hitt.

The old bridge, he said, likely will be dynamited in sections.

Nuts and Bolts of the new

Mississippi River Bridge Project

Reinforcing steel: 13 million pounds

Concrete: 60,170 cubic yards of concrete or 7,521 ready-mix truckloads

Girders: 15 million pounds

Steel cable: 171 miles of cable.