Shale beneath Missouri River thwarting bridge engineers

In 2011 an earthquake that occurred ten miles under the sinkholes that developed in the Pierre Shale in Stanley County was large enough to be felt by humans who live there. 

In 2020 South Dakota was 4th in the US in the number of structurally deficient bridges at 17 percent and 10th in the percentage of structurally deficient bridge deck area. In South Dakota infrastructure suffers to prop up the state's retirement system so, at a price of some $50 million (much of it federal dollars) the red moocher state chose an Iowa builder to replace the bridge across the Missouri River between Fort Pierre and the cesspool on the east side. Built in 1962, it was deemed the existing span is structurally deficient and functionally obsolete. Maybe it will open by 2023.

Construction of the new Lt. Cmdr. John C. Waldron Memorial Bridge over the Missouri River is six months behind, project coordinator Denae Johnson told the Fort Pierre City Council on Monday. “We have geotech studies and we have to go off of those, but there are some subsurface variations that need to be accommodated,” Johnson said. “But there has been some extreme dry conditions that I think are definitely coming into play with this project. These drilled shafts are drilled down to about 134 feet, so that’s a lot of subsurface material to get into.” [Bridge construction behind six months, opening anticipated in mid-2023]

Before it was ousted the Trump Organization's Department of Transportation headed by the wife of Republican former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell awarded more than $5.6 million in grants to upgrade infrastructure and enhance rail safety in the red moocher state that is South Dakota including $2.24 million for the Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern mainline. 

The move comes after catastrophic plunges in commodities prices, numerous wrecks and water breaches on track owned by RCPE, a subsidiary of Genesee and Wyoming operating just north of the former Milwaukee line on a nearly parallel trackbed. Now RCPE wants $84 million of the nearly $1 billion South Dakota is getting from the feds despite nobody in the state's Republican congressional delegation voting for it. The railroad is probably fed up trying to move product at ten miles an hour between Wall and Fort Pierre where Cretaceous shale buckles track bed every year.