This from Travis County:
The Hamilton Pool Road project team has almost completed surveying the area and is moving forward with additional studies of the roadway. The next step in the process is to perform geotechnical investigations to determine soil properties to aid in the design of the bridge improvements and pavement subgrade.

This geotechnical work is scheduled to begin the week of August 17th and could take up to a week to complete (weather permitting). Two soil samples will be taken near Hamilton Creek for the bridge design, and four other samples will be taken along the project limits for the pavement design.

The work will involve drilling an approximately 6-inch diameter hole below the ground to retrieve soil or rock samples to be taken back to the lab for testing. The drillings for the bridge will be near 60 feet in depth and the samples for the roadway will be around 10 feet in depth.

The drilling will be performed by a drilling rig that is just a little bit bigger than a tow-truck. See the example picture below. The drilling activity noise levels are relatively low as compared to typical construction activities.

The drilling rig will be stationary on the roadway during drilling operations and traffic control and flaggers will be used during this work as at times only one lane of this two lane roadway will be open. The activities will take place during non-rush time frames generally starting after 9 a.m. and ending by 3 p.m. each day.

Environmental precautions and safety measures will be taken at sensitive project sites. This includes using plastic at our sampling site to prevent any release of drilling rig fluids and only clean water or air will be used for rock coring purposes. At completion of the drilling activities, each bore hole will be backfilled using cement-bentonite grout and patched with asphalt at paved areas.

Please use caution as this work is underway. We will also begin work on the environmental investigation for the project in the next 30 days so you may see some additional people working in the area. We will provide more information on this effort in future updates. We will have a public meeting to share the findings of our studies in the fall and will notify you once that is scheduled as well.

Contact Information
If you have any comments or need additional information, please contact the project team:

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: www.traviscountytx.gov/hpr (note: webpage coming soon)
 
Arin Gray
Public Involvement Consultant
512-533-9100 Ext. 12

Chiddi N’jie, P.E.
Travis County Project Manager
512-854-7585