ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. - The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) Fort Wayne District announces that the peat removal process on S.R. 14 / Illinois Road project will begin tomorrow. The work involves driving a wall of sheet piling between Inverness Pond and the roadway 25-50 feet into the ground. The sheeting will separate the roadway from the pond, so that crews can completely remove the peat material down to the clay soil. The area will be backfilled with material suitable for roadbed construction.
Initially, one crew from Beaty Construction will perform the pile driving operation during daylight hours. Next week, however, two crews from the same construction company will be working from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., but prohibited from working during the night. This 16-hour expanded work time frame is an attempt to minimize the noise and disruption, but will attempt to keep the project on schedule. 
In the daytime hours between 9 AM and 3 PM, there may be intermittent one lane traffic with flaggers on S.R. 14 while pieces of the piling wall are set into place. 
Residents are asked to be patient with the noise, considering the magnitude of the problem and the remedy.  The pile driving aspect of the project should be complete by mid-to-late September.
This area has had a long history of sinking roadway, maintenance problems and flooding due to the peat material. Peat is a soft organic black dirt that is unsuitable for building roadways.  This issue should not delay the overall completion date of August 2010.

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