As you probably literally heard, the Department of Transportation was driving piles into the riverbed on Saturday, May 5th. The noise was heard all over the Village. There was even a report of someone who was hiking on Hook Mountain and heard the noise. The pile driving continued until about 6:30 PM.
Village officials contacted the Department of Transportation to lodge a complaint and to seek more information and also requested the DOT to give the Village advance notice of the schedule, so the residents can stay informed.
The DOT has informed the Village that they are scheduled to drive another pile on the Westchester side on Saturday, May 12, in the afternoon.
Two piles will be driven on the Rockland side on Wednesday, May 16, between 3:30pm and 6:00pm.
The final pile will be driven mid-river on Friday, May 18. Vibrating will begin at about 10:00am. The piling will be hammered starting at about 1:00pm and last about 3 hours.
This will complete the pile driving. After six or seven weeks, they may strike the piles a couple of more times to see if they have settled, but those strikes would be done in a few minutes.
The pile driving is part of a pilot study to gather data for the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project. They are driving test pilings into the riverbed to test how well they will support the weight of the new bridge. They are driving seven piles in total for the pilot project. Saturday saw the driving of the first two.
Each pile takes about an hour and a half. They use a combination of vibrating and pile driving to set the piles. They are also testing sound mitigation techniques during the driving. They first measure without any mitigation and then try and measure different techniques. This is why the driving stops and then starts again. DOT has stated that they have noise measuring instrumentation in place at Salisbury Point and they also have a person walking around the village with a hand held device taking measurements.
The DOT contract with the firm doing the work allows them to work from 7 AM to 7 PM seven days per week, but they don’t generally work on Sundays. The Village has requested that the DOT instruct the contractor to abide by the Village’s restrictions of 8 AM to 7 PM Monday through Friday, with quiet days on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays.
The Trustees are deeply concerned about the disturbance this activity imposes on our community. We continue to push the state to minimize the impacts on our residents.