The Wabash River Bridge is on time and on budget, according to Michael Fox, field engineer for the project.

Fox made that statement Tuesday at the Mt. Carmel Kiwanis Club's weekly meeting. He and Dave Buzzard, the project's resident engineer, gave the club an update on the bridge's construction.

Buzzard said the worst enemy to the bridge's construction is the Wabash River itself, especially when it is in flood stage, as it is now.

Fox noted the bridge construction was awarded to Midwest Foundation in conjunction with Halverson Construction, both Springfield-area companies. He said the contract called for the bridge to be finished in 250 working days, and noted not every day is a working day, such as is the case now with the river in flood stage.

Work to replace the 1931 bridge, which Buzzard said was built for a cost of $500,000, began on March 25, 2008.

The new bridge is expected to cost $31.1 million, which includes $2.6 million for demolition of the old bridge when the new one is completed. Funding is split 50/50 between Illinois and Indiana.

Fox, who joined the project in 1988, said the 2,877-foot bridge will have 19 piers with 20 spans. It will have 2,267,740 feet of epoxey-coated rebar, and 4,859 cubic yards of concrete in the superstructure, along with 4,516 cubic yards of concrete in the piers.

The bridge will also have nine miles of piling, some of which has been driven 110 feet into the ground due to the soil conditions and the area's high earthquake occurrence factor.

Fox said the collapse of the Mississippi River bridge in Minnesota was not a factor in this bridge's design or construction. He said this design was one of the better earthquake designs, and the state is pleased with the contractors' innovative construction techniques.

He said four problems were involved with the construction. One of those is the river bottom contours, another was the relocation of the Fat Pocket mussel, a third is the settlement of earthen approaches, with the fourth being the form liner texture surfaces.

Another problem was tree removal, which was forbidden between mid-April and mid-September because of the Indiana bats' habitat.

Buzzard said when the old bridge is demolished, the steel will be recycled.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Buzzard showed photographs of some of the construction. He noted a 250-ton crane with a 180-foot boom was used to lift forms in place for concrete pouring. He went step-by-step in showing how the piers -- nine of which have been finished on the Indiana side -- are constructed. Buzzard also showed how coffer dams are being built in the river, how platform barges are used to haul away the soil excavated from those coffer dams, and how seal coat is applied to the concrete being poured into the coffer dams in order to keep the river water from seeping into those piers.

Once the deck has been put into place, Buzzard said the bridge would be striped for two-lane traffic with 12-foot-wide lanes. Each side, he added, would have a 12-foot shoulder.

Buzzard said the anticipated project completion date of June 2010 depends on the river. It could be pushed back to January 2011.