NJ sinkhole issues continue; what happened on Route 80?
The eastbound stretch of I-80 through Wharton, New Jersey has been closed since Feb. 10 for repairs after a depression in the road way gave way to an 11-foot by 11-foot sinkhole. The new 15-foot by 15-foot hole opened up in the center median during a drilling operation, according to officials.
Both these sinkholes are part of a series, following a previous December 40-foot by 40-foot hole that opened just 75 feet away from the February incident. Officials blamed abandoned mineshafts that collapsed.
As of Thursday morning, New Jersey Department of Transportation announced that "all lanes remain closed and detoured at Exit 34 northbound in Wharton due to emergency construction."
According to news officials, repairs on the existing sinkholes were expected to have lasted another two months, albeit the timeline is now subject to change and unclear as NJDOT continues to evaluate the new situation.
The closure impacts a major artery for commuters in the tri-state area as well as truckers through the state of New Jersey, an east-west transcontinental freeway that crosses the country from the Garden State, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.
Sinkholes form when underground rock dissolves due to water, creating voids and cavities and then the surface sinks or collapses into them. They can result from seasonal changes such as freeze and thaw of the ground or extremes in precipitation like drought and heavy rain.
Sinkholes are all about water causing disturbances of the soil.
In the case of the I-80 sinkholes, officials are blaming mineshafts that have collapsed, but attributing them to water nonetheless.
"What really causes these sinkholes to open up after such a long amount of time is water," College of New Jersey civil engineering professor Andrew Bechtel said in news reports. "Water probably caused the first sinkhole to collapse. When they filled it, they changed how water moved under I-80. And now they're probably developing a new one in a different place. So the realistic problem is to figure out where all these old mines go, and then fill and cap them and then rebuild the road on top."
After the February sinkhole collapse and investigation, NJDOT said they "identified 90 locations to be assessed and mitigate potential instability or possible voids."
Maria Francis is a Pennsylvania-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ sinkhole closes Route 80; what we know about Route 80 sink hole
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