BLACK RIVER AND STYXX BRIDGES RE-OPENED

Minister Robert Pickersgill on Friday, April 15, 2005, re-opened the Black River Bridge in St. Elizabeth and the Styxx River Bridge in Westmoreland, both of which were closed for repairs.

In the case of the Black River Bridge, Minister Pickersgill thanked M.P for the area, Mr. Danny Buchanan, Mayor for Black River, Mr. Franklyn Witter, Councillor Kern Smalling and the Hendricks family for their contribution to the rehabilitation of the bridge. (The Hendricks family allowed access to their lands during the re-construction of the Bridge.)

Rehabilitation of this Bridge started in May, 2004 and included:
· The removal of corroded steel members
· Removal and replacement of troughing plates
· Sandblasting and painting of corroded tension chords, joints and bolts
· Repairs to sidewalks and
· The re-surfacing of the bridge deck and approaches with asphaltic concrete.

Kingston Industrial Construction completed the works at a cost of $23.4M. The rehabilitative activities undertaken on the Black River Truss Bridge are part and parcel of the Ministry of Transport and Works/National Works Agency’s Mabey & Johnson Priority Bridge programme. Under this programme, the Ministry intends to spend just over 22.8M pounds to complete the rehabilitation of some 40 bridges island wide. So far 43 bridges have been identified for replacement and two for rehabilitation. In addition, two Fords in Kingston will be replaced with bridges; these are the Queensborough and Cassia Park Fords. The designs for these bridges are now complete and contractors have been invited to bid on them. Tenders were also invited for the construction of the Hog Hole and Boswell Bridges in St. Catherine and St. Andrew respectively.

The Minister also used the opportunity to give an update on roadworks taking place in the parish of St. Elizabeth. He announced that over $67.4M has been spent to rehabilitate the Luana to Sandy Ground main road and an additional $5.6M is being spent to clean drains and bush over 154km of roadways in areas such as Black River, Pedro Cross, Williamsfield, Mountainside, Tombstone, Balaclava, Newton and Brae’s River. In total the Ministry/NWA is spending approximately $75.1M to maintain and build roads in the parish.

And over in Westmoreland, the Styxx Bridge work on which was started in January, 2003 was also opened. The construction on it is part of Phase 1 of the twenty-five million Canadian dollars (Ca$25M) R.A Murray programme.

Construction here was done in two phases:

PHASE 1
Tank-Weld Construction Company carried out the Bridge work component, which included:
· Site Clearance
· Piling works
· Construction of re-inforced concrete abutments, slab deck and
· Bridge Protection works

This phase was completed in August 2004.

PHASE 2
In Phase 2, D.R Foote Construction Company undertook works, which included:
· Construction of the approaches to the bridge
· Removal of existing road surface
· Preparation of formation
· Construction of Base and Surfacing using asphaltic concrete and also
· The installation of guardrails and road markings.

These latter were completed in March.

Minister Pickersgill also highlighted the fact that re-habilitation work on approximately 50km of main roads in Westmoreland valued at just over $307M was done. These works include the Torrington to Galloway, Truro Gate to Locust Tree, Woodstock to Newmarket to Darliston and Albert Town to Ulster Spring main roads. The NWA has also started repairs on five breakaways located in Lambs River, Seaford Town and Belmont; these will cost approximately $17M.

Turning to problems with the Kings Valley and Barham Bridges, Minister Pickersgill noted that designs for the two structures were completed in January and in April, contractors were invited to bid on the packages under our Mabey and Johnson Priority Bridge programme. Tenders are expected to be returned on May 11, 2005 after which a contract for construction will be awarded.