ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A heads up for drivers in north St. Louis County!
St. Louis County's Department of Transportation and Public Works (TPW) will close McDonnell Boulevard between Byassee Drive and Eva Avenue in Hazelwood for a $3.4 million bridge replacement project. The road will remain closed between Byassee and Eva through 2025.
About 15,000 cars cross the J.S. McDonnell Bridge, a 73-year-old structure along Coldwater Creek, daily. But, the heavily traveled bridge will come down because of how old it is.
"It’s a very old bridge and it was just time," David Wrone, public information manager for TPW, said.
It will also give contractors a chance to remove radioactive material underneath it. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) will remove radiation-contaminated soil from the site.
Under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), the USACE is cleaning sites with contamination from the nation’s early atomic energy program. The program is the environmental remediation program within the USACE.
"This is the area with the highest remaining levels of contamination in north St. Louis County sites," Phil Moser, chief of the FUSRAP Environmental Branch, said.
The contaminated soil is connected to the first atomic bomb and it rests below.
"We are looking at the majority of McDonnell Boulevard adjacent to the St. Louis Airport site, the original storage site that's why it's so contaminated underneath there. We're looking at 40-60,000 cubic yards of contaminated material to be taken off-site for disposal," Moser said.
That's also equivalent to 6,000 truckloads and it will be shipped out-of-state at a storage site.
"It's going to take quite a while because there is a lot of contamination underneath there. We'll then replace it with clean back-fill and restore the road to normal condition," Moser said.
The closure will take effect at 9 a.m. on March 20. Drivers are advised to use Banshee Road as an alternative route.
The removal of the radiation process could take as long as 10 months.
Once the contaminated soil is removed, the contractor will build a new bridge. It will feature two driving lanes in each direction, a 3-foot-wide shoulder on one side and a 5-foot-long shared-use shoulder on the other.
The advocacy group Just Moms STL said it hopes this process will be swift.
"We know this area contains some of the most concentrated hottest radioactive material in our community. A simple bridge replacement creates an extra burden because this waste has to be removed first. Look how long it has taken the Highway 270 Project," co-founder Karen Nickel said.