Harbourside completed an embankment monitoring and staged construction analyses for the placement of the approach fills at the Little River Bridge in Lower Cove, NS.  The replacement of the Little River Bridge required several meters of fill to be placed on normally consolidated marine sediments. Analyses showed that rapid placement of the fills would likely have resulted in slope failures of the approaches.

Working with the local department of transportation and the contractor, the staff of HGC carried out a monitoring program which included the installation of vibrating wire piezometers in the underlying marine sediments, settlement plates near the base level of the fill, and slope inclinometer casing extending through the underlying glacial till and bedrock.  Monitoring the dissipation of excess pore pressures and settlements paired with geotechnical analyses provided a practical approach for scheduling completion of the fill placement, while maintaining reasonable factors of safety against slope instability.  Monitoring of the slope inclinometers provided an added assurance that significant lateral movements were not occurring during construction.