TRENDS Winter 2022 | Page 29

Adam Gaugh , a construction engineer in Ayres ’ Green Bay office , assisted WisDOT on the construction services efforts both years .
“ During construction , you always have your ups and downs on how the project is going , but , looking back at it , I think the project went pretty well ,” Gaugh said . “ Hoffman Construction , especially the staff in the field , was great to work with which , in turn , made the end result better .”
For some , project was personal
For Verville , his satisfaction with the project extends beyond mere professional pride .
You see , Verville lives in the Village of Howard , just four miles from the new Highway 29-Highway VV interchange he helped design . He has been a member of the Village ’ s on-call fire department for the past 22 years . During that time he has responded to many crashes at the former , extremely dangerous at-grade intersection .
For Verville , knowing that his work will help to make life safer for all who travel there now makes this project a major milestone in his engineering career .
“ Yeah , it is a big highlight . I ’ d say it ’ s No . 1 ,” he said .
“ I ’ ve been a part of other important team projects that I ’ m proud of , but this one really hit home for me personally . The first time I saw traffic on that interchange , I teared up a little bit . I ’ m not gonna lie .”

Looking out for turtles and trout

Wisconsin has long had a proud tradition of protecting its natural environment . And whenever construction projects are undertaken anywhere in the state , care is taken to ensure potential negative impacts on the local ecosystem are minimized .
In designing the construction of the new interchange in western Brown County , the Ayres team was on the lookout to protect the health of the local wood turtle population and the purity of Trout Creek , an important trout stream that flows through Oneida Nation land south of that site .
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources describes wood turtles as “ secretive , long-lived animals found in roughly the northern two-thirds of Wisconsin .” These turtles were listed as an “ endangered ” species in 1975 when only 22 populations were known . Several years later their status was upgraded to “ threatened .” Today the state has about 300 documented wood turtle populations , but the species retains its “ threatened ” designation .
To protect the wood turtles living in the area of the Highway 29-Highway VV interchange project , silt fencing was erected around the entire construction site . The fencing served to prevent the animals from getting into the site , where they may have been inadvertently harmed by construction workers and their heavy equipment .
Concerns related to Trout Creek centered on the clarity and temperature of water runoff from the construction site .
With this concern in mind , the Ayres team included three stormwater retention ponds in its construction site plan . As water flowed out of these ponds , it went through a “ rock crib ,” essentially a large hole in the ground filled with rock . This process served to lower the temperature of the water before it flowed into Lancaster Brook on the north side of Highway 29 and from there into Trout Creek on the south side of the highway .
“ That was a highly sensitive issue for the Oneida Nation because warmer water could adversely impact Trout Creek , which is an important trout stream that runs through tribal land ,” said Troy Robillard , Ayres ’ manager of transportation service in Green Bay .
– Bob Brown www . AyresAssociates . com 29