OWNERS:
Mississippi Department of Transportation
Jackson, Mississippi 39215

PROJECT ENGINEER:
Neal-Schaffer, Inc.
P. O. Box 22625
Jackson, MS 39225

GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
Hill Brothers Construction Company, Inc.
P. O. Box 131
Falkner, MS 38629

SUB-CONTRACTOR:
Synergy Earth Systems, Inc.

This project consisted of the construction of U. S. Highway 49 through Humphreys and Yazoo Counties in Mississippi. The alignment of the proposed road was such that several bridges were required. A layer of soft clay located under the approach embankments for two of these bridges required the use of wick drains to expedite consolidation of the clay strata. Synergy Earth Systems, Inc. (SES) was retained by the General Contractor to install the wick drains. At one location, wick drains were installed to an average depth of 60 feet on a 3 to 4 foot triangular spacing, while at the other location the wick drains were installed to an average depth of 90 feet on 5 to 6 foot spacings. A total of 316,000 linear feet of wick drains were installed by SES over a period of five weeks. The wick drain installation was successfully completed in November 1998.