In December of 2002, Lunda Construction Company was awarded a $22,500,000 contract to build the concrete substructure and steel superstructure for the new Mississippi River Crossing in La Crosse, WI. Using an accelerated project schedule, construction began in January 2003 working toward a June 1, 2004 completion date. The project entailed the construction of two abutments, ten piers, structural steel superstructure, retaining walls, and approach grading.

The substructure concrete work consisted of construction of two abutments, seven land piers, and three river piers. This included over 67,000 lineal feet of 12” H-piling, 728,000 pounds of reinforcement steel, 6,800 cubic yards of substructure concrete, and 1,500 cubic yards of seal concrete. The three river piers were built using steel sheet pile cofferdams up to 45’ by 90’ in size and driven 65’ to the river bottom. The concrete seals were poured underwater and the cofferdams were dewatered to allow the concrete piers to be constructed.

The steel superstructure, amounting to over 8,262,000 pounds, was divided into two distinct construction operations. The first operation and focal point of the project was the procedure used for the erection of the structural steel tied-arch river span. The second operation was the erection of the ten structural steel trapezoidal box girder (tub) approach spans.

The tied-arch river span was constructed on steel falsework and barges harbored in a river bay adjacent to the main river channel. This allowed barge traffic to continue to run the river with minimal restrictions at the pier cofferdams. On December 17, 2003, the span was floated to it's final position over the two, main channel river piers and lowered onto the bridge bearings by flooding the supporting barges. The amount of time allowed to close the river to barge traffic was limited to 24 hours, but the complete operation was finished approximately 10 hours prior to the deadline.

On this project, many pieces of equipment were used from our large equipment fleet. Included on the project was a 2250 Manitowoc 300-Ton crane, two HC 210 Terex 200-Ton cranes, a 4000 Manitowoc 175-Ton crane, a 110 Terex 100-Ton crane, two 50-Ton American cranes, and two 20-Ton American pickers. A total of three crane barge sets and three material barges were used to transport structural steel tubs, rebar, and forms for the project. Two tugs were used solely for the barge sets, but three tugs were used during the "float in" operation.