Rebuilding Mississippi's Bridges

" 'This is a period when bridge construction is flourishing up and down the river,' says Steve Hague, bridge engineer with HNTB, Kansas City, and a veteran of some 40 Mississippi River projects. 'A lot of the bridges were built in the 1920s and '30s, so it's time to look at replacements.'

.. Building within and over the river banks presents challenges, particularly in shifting soils. 'You have an old historic river meandering around; it has deposited materials over thousands of years,' says Alec Smith, vice president with Haley & Aldrich, Boston, the geotechnical engineer for a proposed Great River Bridge that would stretch five miles between Cleveland, Miss., and McGehee, Ark."

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