Houbolt Bridge Solution

This long-awaited development expands the largest inland port in North America and will provide a new access route for trucks, relieve vehicle congestion, and improve overall transportation safety. Granite Construction and Kraemer North America were named joint general contractors on the project, with D Construction as a subcontractor for excavation.

Ozinga’s Rock Creek Terminal, located directly on the Des Plaines River, allowed for convenient contribution of aggregate materials to this project, including more than 100,000 tons of shot rock to date. During the height of the project, shot rock was blasted one-two times weekly to keep up with demand.

Barges were a perfect solution to move the shot rock to the other side of the river and get the necessary materials where they were needed in a timely fashion. A quarry truck, two end loaders and one backhoe were also utilized to keep the material moving. The quarry truck needed to back up constantly on the barge while moving 40 tons of material at a time.

In addition to providing shot rock to help build a stabilized base for the causeways, ready mix concrete was also utilized out of our Joliet yard, just five miles from the jobsite. Like the aggregate materials, the concrete needed to get to the other side of the Des Plaines River, so the barges were used to move ready mix trucks.

This was a logistical challenge of spacing the trucks correctly, especially taking into consideration the travel time back and forth on the river. This needed to happen in the right cadence so that the pace of the job wasn’t slowed down and the material arrived on time in the condition it was ordered.

Part of Ozinga’s purpose is to leave a positive impact on our community for generations. We greatly value the opportunity to work with our partners and neighbors on such a large-scale, long-term project. Construction is set to be completed sometime in 2023.

Together, there’s nothing we can’t handle.