Construction continues on first Ohio River pier

 

It is starting to look like a bridge. Already one of the two main piers that will make up the basic roadway of the new Ironton-Russell Bridge is rising out of the water.

“Kentucky Tower 3, that is what you are seeing,” Kathleen Fuller, public information officer at Ohio Department of Transportation District 9, said. “What goes across that is the tower strut or inverted V. That is where your roadway is going to sit, the base of the bridge you are driving on. That work is going on now.”

Of the eight total piers on the cable-stayed structure the first two are the approach from Kentucky, then Tower 3, Tower 4, also to be embedded in the Ohio River, with the remaining making up the approach into Ironton. All work is being done by Brayman Construction of Saxonburg, Pa.

“They are continuing to work on Tower 3 or the Kentucky Tower,” Fuller said. “That will be going on in the winter, spring and next summer. That is slated to be finished the summer of 2014.”

As far as Tower 4, all that is completed is drilling the shift with that structure’s completion date set for early 2015. Crews will go back and forth between the towers working toward their completion.

“Some things will get slowed down because of the weather. It’s too wet, too rainy,” Fuller said. “Things will slow them down. That is a fact of nature. We will have a smaller crew on hand. When there is good, decent weather they will work as much as they can.”

On top of site work crews are precasting the sections for the main spans.

“We are on target,” she said. “Maybe a little bit behind. It is a little too early to talk about total completion. Some things they are on target with, but it is such a huge job. They have worked continuously since last winter.”