Goal Oriented

The Oregon Transportation Investment Act (OTIA) III State Bridge Delivery Program is Oregon’s largest transportation investment since the 1950s. When the Legislature enacted the $1.3 billion bridge program, it set out ambitious goals for the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT): repair or replace 365 highway bridges in 10 years.

We at ODOT saw the bridge program as an opportunity to innovate, staging the construction to maintain mobility and to allow Oregon contractors to bid on the work, outsourcing the program management to stimulate the economy, and increasing our use of varied contracting methods such as design-build and construction manager/general contractor.

We also saw it as a chance to build greener bridges. The bridge program is the initial testing ground for a major stewardship project: implementation of environmental performance standards for materials and contamination.

Four years ago, we collaborated with stakeholders and federal and state agencies such as the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to develop overall performance standards for environmental protection, permitting and enhancements on the bridge program. Annual reports encapsulate the results of these efforts.

For 2007, the Third Annual Monitoring Report for Materials and Contamination charts progress toward goal-oriented environmental performance standards (EPS). These EPS give contractors the flexibility to implement context-sensitive environmental protection measures while reducing the cost and uncertainty of environmental permitting and compliance. Contracts for bridge design projects negotiated and procured since September 2005 have included the requirements set forth in the materials and contamination EPS. To help contractors anticipate the requirements of the EPS and get them started on the right foot, ODOT includes environmental stewardship training at construction kick-off meetings.

The annual monitoring report addresses three primary environmental areas: site management, materials and waste management, and contamination discovery and management. A key aspect of the materials standards is the management of construction debris to its "highest and best end use."

While recycling is useful and sometimes even lucrative, reusing materials reduces many other costs such as those of manufacturing and transportation. Our solutions in reusing construction debris have been many and varied. One contractor designed four detour bridges—to be built in succession—that would reuse some of the same initial 80 beams. Two other contractors exchanged 30,000 cubic yards of concrete rubble: one saved disposal fees and the other saved the cost of fill. In the most innovative exchange, 300 trees that had to be cut to replace five bridges were shipped to the Umpqua River where the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife could use them in streams to improve habitat for the threatened Oregon Coast coho salmon.

We are proud that this year’s report shows we have been able to track and clean up all sources of known contamination affected by the project. This may be the result of rigorous preventive activities such as those accomplished by the contractor replacing the McKenzie River bridge north of Eugene, Ore. The company’s storm-draining system not only collects all the water that falls on the bridge but ferries it to shore for treatment. A double layer of Visqueen—a thin sheet of plastic—lies under the plywood surface as a vapor barrier to collect any spills before they reach the water. The muck that drilling brings up is put in steel containers and transported to a garbage site. For the drilled shafts themselves, the company uses a permanent steel casing that contains the concrete and keeps the water clean. Also, to help mitigate the sound waves caused by drilling, which would disturb fish and other creatures in the river, the contractor uses a bubble curtain: a ring on the bottom of the river that discharges air, causing bubbles to rise continually and isolate vibrations and noise.

In the past, ODOT contracts required construction companies to estimate volumes of materials for reuse and recycling, such as concrete, asphalt, metal and wood, but did not require them to submit a report to the agency detailing their efforts. For example, reporting received from construction sites in 2007 documents savings of at least $265,000 from reuse and recycling, but since much of the reporting did not include specific figures, much greater savings most likely occurred.

To address this chicken-and-egg conundrum—without data on how much recycling and reuse is being accomplished, how can we set reasonable targets?—ODOT initiated the Construction and Waste Management Program. For 2008, the bridge program is including special provisions in construction contracts to improve data collection and better track waste management activities. Construction companies are asked to forecast the percentage of materials they anticipate reusing or recycling on their bridge projects and submit quarterly reports about their progress.

Targets have been established for various material types, depending on where in the state a project is being built. In the more densely populated western side of the state, targets are set at 80 percent recycling for materials such as concrete, asphalt and metal; those targets are set at 60 percent for the vaster, less populated eastern regions. To help contractors achieve the targets, ODOT has created a reporting form they can submit by e-mail or postal mail and a directory and resource guide to recycling and reuse possibilities.

With these new tools, ODOT will be able to collect complete, accurate information about how much reuse and recycling is feasible. This data will inform business practices and help us set realistic goals for the future. It will also enable us to highlight the good work that contractors are doing on behalf of the environment in the course of our bridge repairs and replacements.

Such reporting is common in vertical construction—that is, buildings—but is rare in highway, or linear, construction. While it is common to monitor waste on existing contaminated sites, it is unusual to monitor sites proactively. Other states, like Texas, are also developing construction debris management programs and documents, but we have not found another state that has set targets for recycling. When the bridge program is finished, Oregon will have not only a much-improved highway infrastructure but a set of guidelines for increasingly green construction practices. C&DR