Blasting a trail
Contractor builds through solid rock to four-lane MS Highway 6

By C. Richard Cotton

The ocean that covered north Mississippi eons ago left behind surprises still being discovered today. Even sharks' teeth are found in sand formations around the region.

Sometimes, long-buried surprises pop up in the most unexpected places - like near the western terminus of the MS Highway 6 construction in Pontotoc County.

"We had to remove 170,000 cu. yds. of solid rock," said John Robbins, project manager for Eutaw Construction of Aberdeen, Miss., the prime contractor for the $32 million project that will four-lane 7.2 mi. of the highway.

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Robbins learned from Mississippi Department of Transportation officials that the rock was once a coral reef. "It was a solid strata of rock that was a change to the project," he added. Rocks of that magnitude are unusual in the area around Pontotoc County, which lies directly west of Tupelo. More common are streambeds strewn with gravel.

Nonetheless, the ancient reef had to be dealt with. Eutaw crews set about the task with hoe rams, busting the large rock into smaller more manageable pieces. That excess was disposed of as unsuitable for fill on any part of the project, Robbins said.

Part of the state's continuing four-lane program that was initially launched in 1987, MS Hwy. 6 will eventually bypass Pontotoc. The current route is a two-lane bottleneck that includes a confusing turn, traffic signals and stop signs.

The new highway hooks up north of Pontotoc with four-lane MS Highway 76, which was built from Oxford to MS Highway 9 several years ago; MS 76 will be rededicated as MS 6 upon construction of the current segment.

When the construction phase is completed to MS Highway 342, about 11 mi. of two-lane MS 6 will remain between the new highway's eastern terminus and Tupelo. Long-range plans call for MS 6 to eventually loop around Tupelo.

Besides the solid coral-reef rock, another 755,000 cu. yds. of excess dirt was also hauled away, while 550,000 cu. yds. were used for fill. The total excavation for the project topped 1.4 million cu. yds.

"That is the biggest task," Robbins said.

The western two-thirds of the project is new alignment, while the eastern third is new lanes that parallel the existing highway, which will become a frontage road for the new thoroughfare.

The Longview Road overpass and a fly-over bridge to connect the old MS 6 sections together and to provide an entrance ramp to the new sections have yet to be constructed. Their construction will complete the contract of N. L. Carson Construction Co. Inc. with Eutaw.

"We have built four bridges already," said Lee Carson, vice president of the firm founded by and named for his father in 1973 and based in Carthage, Miss.

The six bridges are all pre-stress concrete beams topped with precast concrete panels; the first constructed was the MS 9 overpass at the western terminus of the new project. Carson said that bridge and one other required 36-in.-diameter drill shafts - nine per bridge - rather than the standard pilings that were driven for the other bridges.

"The soil was not conducive to pilings," he said of the shafts drilled 30 to 40 ft. deep. The firm has experience in both hard and soft applications, much of it from extensive work in Alabama, Carson added.

Carson expects his crews to return to work on the project about April 1. He predicts completion of the remaining two bridges by October.

Eutaw crews have let the project lay since winter set in. The only active work crews have been from APAC of Mississippi, which is placing asphalt pavement as weather allows.

Keith Kelly, APAC construction manager, said his firm is about 15 percent complete with their share of the project. The company is expected to place more than 300,000 tons on the project, comprising four different asphalt grades in five separate lifts.

Lee Hall, owner of Hall's Construction Co. Inc. of New Albany, Miss., said his work is about three-quarters complete on the highway's box culverts.

"We have two to finish and two to build," Hall said.

The largest of the six he contracted to build was a 12-ft. by 16-ft. double-barrel structure more than 500 ft. long. It took his crews three months to pour more than 1,500 cu. yds. of concrete in the culvert's five sections. Each section required three different pours and, with the headwalls and aprons, totaled 20 pours.

Hall said he expected to be back on the job in early spring, too, with completion of the two partially built boxes coming in four to six weeks after that. The remaining two boxes are in the transition area of the old and new highway. They will be built, possibly next fall, when traffic is moved off the old highway onto the new highway.

Robbins said the project was 47 percent complete as of January; only 26 percent of the allotted contract time had been used. Although the contract completion date is September 2006, Robbins planned to turn it over to the state in mid 2005.

Eutaw is named after the rock strata common in the area. Owner Tom Elmore founded the company in 1980.