West Virginia Rt. 9 Earthwork Contract to the Shenandoah River Near Completion

Our crews are in the closing days of wrapping up the West Virginia Route 9 project in Charles Town, West Virginia after a great year of high production earthmoving on the far eastern tip of West Virginia.

The project was for the West Virginia Division of Highways and completed a two-mile stretch of embankment that will support a four-lane highway. The scope included earthwork and drainage. The Division of Highways will allow a separate project to install pavement at a later date. Following this phase, the final section of the project before paving will be a 1,200 ft bridge across the Shenandoah River and over to the Virginia state line.

Much of the mass excavation was completed last year with 2.3 million cubic yards coming from historic Snyder Hill, and placed for the remainder of the embankment stretch. The earthwork was completed on double shift with two crews operating around the clock to bring the project in well before the deadline this November. The crew even worked within the sensitive time restrictions on a portion of the site that was adjacent to the nest of an American Bald Eagle.

Ahern and Associates (now a division of Kokosing) was a key partner in this project, as the base bid included a precast beam bridge. Ahern designed, proposed, and installed a Contech pre-cast arch system in place of the bridge. The system is a two-piece concrete arch that was installed to carry County Road 27 beneath the highway. Independence crews then coordinated with Ahern to place our embankment material over and above the arch to ultimately convey the road approximately 80 feet below the future road surface. Additionally, this was all done at a significant savings to the West Virginia taxpayers.

This seasons- work consisted of completing the embankment over the pre-cast arch, completing the surface drainage and grading and seeding the site so it can sit idle until the paving contract. Mother Nature made sure we didn't start the season too early by dumping over 50 inches of snow on the site in the month of February. With the inclement winter weather and the spring rains, monitoring, maintaining and keeping ahead of the erosion control requirements was paramount in protecting the delicate Shenandoah River watershed.

Everyone's efforts are ensuring an efficient project that we can all take pride in. Thank you to all of those who have contributed to this project thus far, including the West Virginia Division of Highways, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Baker Engineering, Operating Engineers-Local 132, Laborers District Council- Local 379, sub-contractors, suppliers and IX project team members and support staff.