Civil and highway divisions almalgamate

The heavy civil and highway divisions have been working closely together over the past three years and, considering the type of work both divisions do, it seemed like a logical match. The two divisions amalgamated this year and so far it has been a good merge. Prior to the start of the 2008 construction season we organized a team-building session. With the help of Dale Harley and Caron Benjamin it was very successful. This session made a significant contribution to the success of the merger.

New appointments

1. Tom Hughes has been hired as our Asphalt Superintendent. This role is key to the success of our team. With Tom’s background and personality, he is the perfect fit for the job. We all welcome Tom to our team.
2. We have promoted Terrence Letemplier from Lead Hand to Structure Foreman. When possible, we like to promote employees from within the company, and once this position became available Terrence had the desire and experience to fill the role. We all congratulate Terrence on his promotion.

Heavy civil projects

• The West Transitway extension project at Bayshore continued through the winter. As of June 5/08 we had completed Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the Richmond Road bridge. This bridge was completed ahead of schedule and our onsite staff should be congratulated for a tremendous effort. With Richmond Road back to normal traffic flow, we can now close the E-N/S off ramp and begin the construction of the E-N/S overpass structure. The completion date for this bridge is October 31/08. The retaining wall construction is proceeding well and should be completed by fall 2008. The hoe ramming of the rock is approx 90% complete and road construction will follow later in the summer.
• Highway 7 has reached completion with final work being completed on July 31 and the Highway turned over to the MTO on August 8, 2008.

We were successful in being awarded the Bronson Avenue Canal Bridge Rehabilitation Project. It is worth $3 million and involves six stages of work over two years. The work involved is as follows:

1. Remove and replace deck, sidewalks and medians.
2. Remove and replace longitudinal and transverse deck joints.
3. Major deck repairs with a complete new concrete deck overlay.
4. Jacking the bridge and replacing the bearings.
5. Repairs to the abutment walls and deck soffit repairs. The soffit repairs include the section of deck over the canal. A working platform must be constructed for access. This work must be performed during the winter, after the navigation season.

We have also been awarded another project at the Carp Road landfill site. The job is worth approximately $3.5 million and the main portion of the contract is placing approximately 200,000 tonnes of clay on the slopes of the landfill. It’s a project that keeps good a percentage of our equipment working for two or three months.

Highway projects
The highway crews have been busy and it appears that they will be for the year. We started off the year paving Highway 41 for Cruickshank. The portable plant will then move to Hwy 7 in Marmora to pave 50000t for Bonnechere Excavating. In May we were awarded a new M.T.O. project on Hwy 118 near Cardiff. The project is worth $5 million and it’s one of the new pavement-with-warranty contracts. The contract consists of the rehabilitation of 11.6km of two lane highway using our design with a seven-year warranty.