PORT CARBON - The contractor demolishing the Pottsville Street Bridge found a better way to do the work and stopped work temporarily until the state Department of Environmental Protection approved the plan, state officials said Thursday.
When borough Mayor Charles R. "Chuck" Joy noticed Wednesday that work to replace the bridge had stopped, he picked up the phone to find out why.
"We were driving around Wednesday and noticed the equipment was pulling out of town, which was unusual for a construction job. So I started doing some research," Joy said Thursday.
Work on the demolition and replacement of the state bridge had stopped temporarily on May 21, and it will resume Monday, Sean Brown, safety press officer for the state Department of Transportation, District 5, said Thursday.
"The contractor figured out a better way to demolish the bridge, and they had to resubmit its erosion and sedimentation plan to the state. It's not something unusual. Changes in plans can occur on such projects, and our inspector said until they got the new permit, they had to stop work temporarily," Brown said.
Built in 1926, the Pottsville Street Bridge is a concrete T-beam bridge. It needs to be replaced because of deficiencies in its superstructure. It will be replaced by a reinforced concrete adjacent box-beam bridge, which can hold "unlimited" tonnage, according to Timothy A. Bolden, a consulting engineer with Gibson-Thomas Engineering Co. Inc., Camp Hill, the firm the state hired to design the new bridge, Brown said previously.
In February, PennDOT hired Heim Construction, Pottsville, as the general contractor for the bridge replacement project with an estimated cost of $1,797,789.37.
In late April, PennDOT closed the Pottsville Street Bridge and established a detour that includes Route 209, which is Pike Street.
PennDOT expects the new Pottsville Street Bridge to be open to traffic by Oct. 17, Bharat A. Pandya, a PennDOT construction engineer, said February at a pre-construction meeting in Allentown.
On Dec. 31, 2012, the DEP approved a permit allowing PennDOT to demolish the bridge and build a new one, according to Colleen Connolly, community relations coordinator with DEP's Northeast Regional Office, Wilkes-Barre.
In the original plan, the contractor was going to remove one side of the bridge, then the other, Brown said.
"Recently, they asked if they could remove both sides at the same time. They believed that way they could accelerate the project. So they had to resubmit the plan," Brown said.
DEP approved the updated erosion and sedimentation plan Thursday, Brown said.
"The contractor - we've been dealing with a John Serratore from Heim Construction - submitted a request to change BMPs - Best Management Practices - in the approved erosion and sedimentation control plan on April 16, 2014. The request was reviewed and the department had requested additional information during the review process regarding run-off issues. The revisions were approved," Connolly said Thursday.
"There is no additional cost of this or delay to the project," Brown said. "The contractor will resume work on Monday."
"I'm hoping our target for the end of October or early November is still a reality here," Joy said.