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The new south bound bridge (Phase 2) of the $44 million I-91 Rockingham VT Bridge Replacement Project is underway.  The new north bound bridge (Phase 1) is now carrying NB & SB traffic of Vermont I-91 over the Williams River.

The new 880-foot-long bridges are 4-span structures, with spliced concrete beams and concrete bridge decks.  The bridge decks are 130 ft. above the Williams River.  This project is Reed & Reed’s first ever spliced concrete beam bridge.  The beam structure consists of five runs of 7 individual concrete beams that were installed on temporary support framework, aligned and held in position with thirty steel strong backs.  Cast in place concrete closures were placed between the ends of the beams and then three, 19 strand tendons running from abutment to abutment were installed and tensioned.  Crews will be grouting the tendon and working on the concrete deck and barrier for the south bound bridge.  Work is expected to complete this season.  Once the new SB bridge is open, the temporary crossovers will be removed and traffic restored fully in both directions.

After years of planning and permitting, work is finally underway at the Weaver site in Hancock County, Maine.  As Engineer-Procure-Construct (EPC) contractor, Reed & Reed’s scope includes installing 22 Vestas V126, 3.45MW turbines on 116.5-meter towers, all sitework, construction of a new Operations and Maintenance facility, overhead and underground electrical/fiber collection systems and 34.5/115kV electrical substation.

These towers are among the tallest in the Americas with the hub height at 382 feet and the blade tips reaching some 585 feet.  They will compliment similar towers at the nearby Hancock Wind project which Reed & Reed built in 2016 and the adjacent Bull Hill Wind Project, also built by Reed & Reed, in 2012.

The first turbine deliveries begin in February and will continue into the spring, weather and road conditions permitting.  Final completion and commercial operation for this $150 million project are scheduled for late 2020.

Reed & Reed crews have completed installing two new submarine power cables under Seneca Lake in upstate New York.  The cables are each 16,000 feet long and lay on the lake bottom where water depths reach 600 feet.  Near shore where the water is shallow the cables were installed in trenches and backfilled.  Reed & Reed’s work also included installing new riser structures and switches on both the east and west sides of Seneca Lake where the new lines come ashore.  Fiber optic data and communications lines were also installed as part of the project scope.

Once the new cables were installed and energized Reed & Reed removed four existing cables that followed the same route but were installed in the 1940s.  The new cables are a significant upgrade to the local transmission grid and increase reliability as well as adding back-up capacity.

The project was years in the planning stages.  The new submarine cables were manufactured for Reed & Reed to exacting specifications by the Kerite Company, cabled together and armored in Florida, and delivered to the area by rail on a 150,000-pound cable reel that Reed & Reed loaded onto its barge for the trips across the lake.

Increasingly challenging fall weather in the Finger Lakes region forced the cable laying barge into safe harbor at times but the Reed & Reed crews found calm water work windows in which to install the new lines.  Hats off to the entire Reed & Reed project crew.

Sometimes the pre-construction phase of a project can be longer that the actual construction phase.  Such is the case at the Antrim wind project where Reed & Reed has been in a support role for over 9 years. But happily, in April 2018 the project finally received the go ahead to build. We mobilized in July 2018 and our civil subcontractor Sargent Corporation started moving earth. We had a little over 3 miles of access roads to build, as well as 9 Turbine pads, O&M building subgrade fill, and a Substation yard. Reed & Reed’s substation crew built the collector substation yard while waiting for turbine deliveries to begin in May, 2019.  Foundations are complete and mud season is almost behind us.

Reed & Reed’s electrical team is building the underground and overhead collector systems and the project substation.

We will move one of our M-16000 top-out cranes to Antrim to erect the nine Siemens 2.3mw turbines on 80-meter towers.  The work is scheduled for a September 2019 final completion.

The Ossipee Bridge project is well under way. The $17 million project consists of replacing three bridges on busy Route 16 in Ossipee, NH and reconstructing some 3.4 miles of roadway. One of the bridges will be built while we shift traffic onto a detour while the other two require us to construct the new bridges adjacent to the existing bridges and during an 84-hour closure, demolish the old bridges and slide in the new ones. This will be accomplished over 2 construction seasons.  It is our understanding that this is the first “slide-in” bridge project for NHDOT.  Reed & Reed has successfully completed several bridge slide projects previously.

Our earthwork subcontractor A.J. Coleman is performing the roadwork while Reed & Reed completes the three bridges.  Because of the heavy seasonal traffic in the region, the are a number of restrictions on operations to minimize the impact on traffic during construction.

Reed & Reed is driving 24-inch and 30-inch pipe piles up to 200 feet to bedrock, constructing precast and cast-in-place concrete abutments and piers and building composite steel beam and concrete superstructures for all three bridges.  Work is on schedule for a June 25, 2021 completion.

On Oct. 18, 2018 the New Hampshire DOT awarded Reed & Reed a $17 million contract to replace three bridges and rebuild 3.5 miles of Rt. 16 in Ossipee New Hampshire.

This project will run for approximately 2 years and replace bridges over the Bear Camp River, the Bear Camp Overflow Channel and Lovell Stream.  The project will begin in early November with clearing of right-of-way and relocation of utilities.

The Bear Camp River Bridge and the Overflow Channel Bridge are designed as slide in projects where the new bridge is built adjacent to the existing bridge then when complete the road is detoured for an 84 hour long weekend, the existing bridges are demolished in place and the new bridges are slid into position.  It will be a busy 84 hours.

Brookfield White Pine Hydro, LLC procured Reed and Reed in the Summer of 2018 for dredging timber from behind the Wyman Dam located in Bingham, Maine. This project included the removal of approximately 1200 tons of timber material located in front of the dam intakes. In 2007, Reed and Reed, performed similar work for the previous dam owner. The project also included installing a temporary 50-foot access trestle from the northerly shore, and mobilizing 9 sections of sectional barge Flexifloats for the 518 Linkbelt Crane-(150 ton) to sit on. The project began August 1^st, 2018 and dredging was complete by mid-October.