BERRYMAN & HENIGAR COMPLETES $2.7 MILLION EMERGENCY CONSTRUCTION SUPPORT PROJECT FOR CALTRANS

SAN DIEGO, CA, Aug. 24, 1998 - Berryman & Henigar has completed a $2.7 million emergency construction support project for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The project comprised northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Lebec, CA. Ray Berryman, the firm's president and chief executive officer, made the announcement.

Mudslides threatened to close northbound lanes of I-5 at Lebec. This portion of the highway, known as 'The Grapevine,' is about 75 miles north of Los Angeles. According to Keith Gillfillan, Berryman & Henigar senior vice president who spearheaded the project, the company provided inspection personnel who worked around the clock for three weeks to get the job done.

"We worked day and night with Caltrans to ensure that the soil was stabilized to prevent further damage," he said. "I-5 is a key north-south California transportation corridor so we had to work fast and efficiently. It was a huge, complex job - more than 800 truckloads of silt and mud were hauled from the site 24 hours a day. Twenty horizontal drains averaging 240 feet were drilled into the side of the hill and slotted plastic drain lines were inserted into the holes - about 10,000 gallons of water each day was drained from the hill!"

Gillfillan added that the principal task of the southbound project was to permanently repair the median embankment and stabilize a slope, both of which had become eroded by the adjacent Grapevine Creek.

"The road base was replaced using one-inch diameter gravel and filter fabric buttressed with three-ton rock," Gillfillan said. "This way we were able to maintain an even flow of water in the stream bed which flowed between the northbound and southbound lanes."

Caltrans District 6 Resident Engineer Paul Pineda said Caltrans is currently working on plans and specifications to provide permanent repairs to the northbound slide area.

District 6, located in Central California, is the second largest of the 12 Districts statewide, consisting of 476 miles of freeway and 1,554 miles of rural and urban highway. It includes Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties. District 6, which stretches from the southernmost part of Yosemite National Park in the north to the Mojave Desert, has the largest portion of road miles to maintain in California's highway system.

Berryman & Henigar is a multi-disciplinary professional services firm with a staff of 300 professionals serving public and private clients from 13 offices nationwide. Services include civil and environmental engineering; community development; construction management; environmental planning; public services management & finance; and surveying. Berryman & Henigar is ranked as one of the Top 200 consulting engineering companies by Engineering News-Record. Corporate headquarters are in San Diego.

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