Engineering Alaska: the Colville River Nigliq Channel Bridge: short timeframe, difficult conditions, excellent design.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Engineering & Architecture

Every year Roads & Bridges magazine publishes the Top 10 Bridge awards, recognizing top projects taking place in North America. According to Roads & Bridges, the Top 10 list is based on "project challenges, impact to region, and scope of work."

In 2016 the No. 2 slot was filled by the Colville River Nigliq Channel Bridge, which provides access to ConocoPhiliips' CD5 site in NPR-A.

All of the bridges in the Top 10 had challenges: for example, the 2.5-mile, $118.5 million Choctawhatchee Bay Bridge in Florida was unable to drive piles for several months during the year because of restrictions to accommodate an endangered fish species; the Manayunk Bridge in Pennsylvania ($5.7 million, 1,900 feet) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so special care was necessary to comply with preservation design requirements; and the 3,600-foot Kentucky Lake Bridge, which cost $132 million, had to use a floating template to guide 6-foot diameter, 199-foot long piles into place, a complicated process that resulted in an average of three (of fifty-one total) piles being placed per week. Other bridges had seasonal limitations, took place in remote areas, or had special environmental or cultural restrictions.

Nigliq Channel Bridge

Alaska's own $100 million Colville River Nigliq Channel Bridge had to accommodate seasonal restrictions, a remote site, a lack of infrastructure, a limited timeframe, and the subsistence needs of local residents. The Nigliq Channel Bridge was new construction, so there wasn't a National Register to contend with, but the bridge is located on lands owned by Kuukpik Corporation, the Alaska Native village corporation for Nuiqsut. ConocoPhiliips' original location for the bridge was opposed by local leaders when it was proposed in 2005.

Due to this opposition, ConocoPhiliips withdrew the application. "Over time we worked closely with [the Village of Nuiqsut] to determine a new location for the bridge that they felt was a better fit for their needs," says ConocoPhiliips Alaska Communications Specialist Amy Jennings Burnett. Permits applications were submitted in 2009, including the updated bridge location, with the support of the Kuukpik Corporation, the state of Alaska, the Alaska congressional delegation, the North Slope Borough, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, owner of the CD5 site subsurface rights.

PCL Civil Constructers provided construction management services for the Nigliq Channel Bridge, which was designed...