WEST BATON ROUGE PARISH - After months of stalled progress, construction crews are preparing to resume work on the new Intracoastal Bridge on LA-1 in West Baton Rouge Parish.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development says crews are delivering and assembling equipment that will be used to address a settling issue that was identified earlier this year.

Workers have already completed the grouting that was a step in the early part of the stabilization process.

"While we were doing the grout, the specialized bridge crew that builds that bridge went to another job and then once we completed our grout and they had their job completed they came back," Rodney Mallett, spokesperson for DOTD, said.

In January, WBRZ reported that "unexpected settlement" of the structure had been traced to problems with the bases of 17 bridge support columns.

The solution chosen involves a technique called "low-mobility grouting," in which "grout is injected into the ground beneath the piles to compact loose soils."

The work being done is on a future southbound span, which will be the first part of the new bridge expected to open around mid-2024. 

A northbound component will follow once funding is secured. According to Mallett, inflation has pushed back a number of state projects this year. 

"The cost of a lot of these projects are going up immensely," Mallett said.