Yankee Ingenuity

There is a conglomeration of different soils in the northeast United States. In Maine, soil types can change within a few feet. Occasionally there were surprises of a different kind.  Construction problems forced some unusual solutions.

Portland and the Back Bay Area

Marine clays caused big problems during the construction of the I-295 in and around the Portland area. The solution was to drill vertical drains of various depths, and fill them with sand for drainage. In this area alone there are 500 miles of sand drains.

"Floating" Fill

In some cases, brush was used as a barrier between especially bad underlying soil and the fill that was being placed. This was a precursor to the geotextiles that are in use today.

Argyle Bog

The Argyle Bog a few miles north of Bangor presented a unique problem. The area had been used by the U. S. Army between the world wars as a weapons training area. Because of this, construction engineers could not use any type of probes to test the soils for fear of detonating unexploded ordnance. The road was laid down with no soils testing at all. Construction proceeded with extreme caution within this area.

Glacial Deposits

The pervasiveness of glacial deposits made it necessary to use extra care in selecting materials and siting roadways.

This page last updated on 7/18/06