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Southeast Edition
March 27 2019 Vol. XXXII • No. 7
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Inside
TDOT Stabilizes I-24 Hillside After Landslide
By Lori Lovely
TDOT photo
CEG CORRESPONDENT
Contour Mining Makes Lifting Look Easy…8
NTEA Show Breaks Attendance Records…33
The Tennessee Department of Transportation reopened a section of eastbound Interstate 24 two days earlier than expected following a landslide Feb. 23. The slide, which took place near mi. marker 42, dumped approximately 50,000 cu. yds. of former hillside on the interstate, covering both eastbound lanes for about three-quarters of a mi. along the busy commuter path between Clarksville and Nashville. Citing one of the wettest Februaries on record and especially heavy rain late in the month, TDOT Operations Manager Kim Welch said the state has experienced a near-record number of landslides this year. “It’s been happening all over Tennessee. Region 1 had a significant amount of slides,” she said. “We [in Region 3] had just one, but it may be the biggest landslide I’ve ever seen.” An embankment with a steep hill on top stands adjacent to one side of the interstate. The slide occurred at the presplit rock wall where the slope gets down to grade. “There were a lot of rock outcroppings when we built the road,” Welch explained. “We had to blast the rock out.”
Crews work to stabilize the hill following a landslide along I-24 in Tennessee.
After the rock was presplit to allow construction of the road, she said, the material above rock face became a problem. “It was wet, heavy and holding a lot of water,” she said. “The dirt above the rock just sheared off.”
Common Sense Fuels a Revolution…47
see SLIDE page 62
Highway Funding Plans Move Ahead
Table of Contents ............4 Truck & Trailer Section .... ..................................33-38 Attachment & Parts Section ......................39-42 Recycling Section ....47-59 Business Calendar ........80 Auction Section ........82-85 Advertisers Index ..........86
First Things First “The main thing was to stabilize [the hillside] first before we cleared the road,” Welch continued. “We needed to stabilize it to get traffic moving.”
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signs into law key pieces of a new twopart, $300 million highway-funding plan for the state.
The governors of Arkansas and Alabama recently approved fuel tax increases, with Arkansas also placing on the 2020 ballot an amendment that would “indefinitely” extend a half-cent sales to generate $205 million a year for highway infrastructure needs. On March 11, Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed into law key pieces of a new two-part $300 million highway-funding plan for Arkansas unveiled during a press conference in February. The first part of that funding plan relies on an “indefinite” extension of a half-cent sales tax imposed in 2012 that expires in 2020. Roughly 28 percent of the current revenue accrued via the half-cent sales tax goes towards paying off bonds for road projects. By extending the half-cent sales tax, the state would be able to shift to a “pay as we go” system, Hutchinson noted. see PLANS page 30