Water main under Phillip Street bridge to be replaced

Infrastructure improvements in the City of Rhinelander will continue next month with the replacement of the 50-year-old water main under the Phillip Street bridge, public works director Randy Myrum announced during the July 24 meeting of the city’s common council.

For safety reasons, this project will include a road closure and detour, he noted.

“The last thing in the world I wanted to do this year still is create another road closure, but when we weighed the safety concerns that Scott (Denis, project manager for the primary contractor, Musson Bros. Inc.) has for his crew and the fact that it would cost us probably an additional $15,000 to $20,000 to implement traffic control, I felt that the better option is to issue a detour.”

“This was a hard decision,” he added. “We did spend a lot of time trying to think of possibilities but there are safety concerns.”

Denis explained that the project was originally planned for 2022 but was delayed because it was not possible to get the necessary insulated water main in 2022. Also, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates dams, was delayed in approving the permit and scope of work. 

Further, as Denis explained, FERC will not allow the workers to work from a platform in the water as they usually do when replacing water mains.. Ordinarily, Denis said, they work from a barge placed in the water, but that’s not possible for this project.

“They (FERC) will not allow us to have anything in the water in the canal going to the paper mill, so we have to do everything from sitting on top of the bridge deck,” he explained. “We will have an excavator that’ll sit on the bridge deck and there will be a basket that connects to the excavator. You’ve seen plenty of excavators around town. Where the bucket normally is that will be a basket that is 4x8 and the workers will be in the basket and that has to get lowered over the edge of the bridge and then brought in underneath the bridge and then we work getting the hangers on top of the bridge.”

After measuring the lane width, Denis said he and Myrum determined that Musson’s equipment will take up “almost the entirety of one lane”. 

The concern is an inattentive driver could collide with the machine on the bridge, sending the workers into the water.

“If there’s one little instance of a mistake by an inattentive driver or somebody texting while they’re coming through there and they would happen to run into the side of our machine on the bridge or anything like that, we could lose all of our men right into the canal,” he explained. “So based on the safety aspect of it alone, we would really need to shut that bridge down just to keep our workers safe and I think it would help to keep the public safe at the same time.”

The project is expected to begin on Aug. 14 and the closure is expected to last two to three weeks.

City administrator Patrick Reagan asked Denis and Myrum to coordinate with the fire and police departments as they need to know about any road closures.

Another question was posed by city council president Eileen Daniel who wanted to know if the local bus service and school district have been advised of the project.

“I know for a fact, because I used to live on the west side, that a lot of buses go across that bridge and so they’re going to have to alter their bus routes and their bus times and pickup times and all that kind of stuff if that’s not going to be open the first week of school...” she said.

Denis assured Daniel that coordination with the school district and bus company will take place.

In response to a question from Daniel about the Coolidge Avenue and Timber Drive four-way, which has been under construction, Myrum confirmed that intersection will be open by the time school starts, however it may not be fully paved.

“It will be accessible and there will be a through route for the bus route,” Myrum said.

The common council meeting is available at www.hodagtv.com.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].