Fixing the road on the mountainside
SHOHOLA Work started last week on Rosa (Rosa Switch) Road, on the Shohola side of Pond Eddy, and is expected to last for another week to two weeks, said workers on the job. A specialist, Soil Nail Launchers Inc., of Colorado is working along the local Shohola road department to carry out the crucial repairs on the eroded surface. The need for repair was highlighted when a crane used to repair the road got stuck last week, sinking deep into the outside road embankment high above the Delaware River. Shohola Township was awarded a $494,417 grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA, to repair the badly damaged, and at times unusable road. “In winter, the water runs off the mountain onto the road, and freezes, leaving a sheet of ice,” said resident Marina Mackay. The school bus and FedEx have stopped going to the about 25 households along the road due to safety concerns. The road also serves many hunters using the state game lands, but they are unable to use their cars. Mackay continued, “It’s also impossible to plow it in the winter.” Additionally, the run-off causes erosion on the riverside, and the whole embankment is slowly being washed away. The drainage system is in need of repair. The underlying road structure itself is undermined, and unless something is done, the road would have become unusable, according to both road residents and Shohola Township Supervisor Eleanore Wall. She prepared and applied for the grant with the help of Penn State University. The township found that Soil Nail Launchers is the only company in US that does this kind of work. They have a patented technique that is used to repair roads that have become unstable or undermined. As the name implies, they use steel rebar rods, “nails,” shot into the earth by a declassified British military cannon. The process stabilizes the underlying structure, according to the company’s Web site. “We are using local contractors to do jobs that don’t require specialized skills, such as bridge railing repair and road surfaces,” added Wall.
About soil nail launching
“The Soil Nail Launcher can accelerate a 1.5 inch diameter, 20 foot long steel bar to 220 miles per hour. As these high speed projectiles enter the earth, a shock wave is generated at the tip that causes the soil particles to “jump away”. The bar enters the earth without significant abrasion. The soil particles then collapse onto the bar, providing surprisingly high pullout resistance -- many times greater than for driven bars and rods.” br> Source: soilnaillauncher.com
The project
Work includes installing eight new drainage pipes, 1,264 square feet of rebar, mesh, plates, and shotcrete, 158 linear feet of extra shoulder build-up of shotcrete, and a durable surface over approximately 2,300 feet of roadway
Source:recovery.pa.gov/