to an end yesterday when Palmetto Road was re-opened to the public.

The road was shut at the end of July due to severe subsidence and engineers were forced to excavate a section of the road opposite Pembroke Marsh.

Yesterday the road was re-opened -- about six weeks late due to problems digging around underground pipes and cables.

"This has been a long project, but a very necessary project,''' Works and Engineering Minister Leonard Gibbons said. "The project was to secure the road and in securing the road we had a water main, a sewage main, a Telco line as well as a fuel line from Esso to Belco.

"It was vital that this vital link be restructured and be restructured correctly.'' The stretch of Palmetto Road had been suffering from subsidence for several years and in May and June was moving at a rate of one inch every 24 hours.

To correct the problem engineers had to build a new base at the bottom of the embankment leading to the Marsh, excavate the road, extend the embankment's slope and install new drainage that filtered water before going into the Marsh.

In addition, the new slope from the road was designed to be compatible with the sensitive marshland environment as well as provide a better safety factor against a potential land slip, officials said.

The work cost $265,000 and involved: 1,624 truck loads of fill; 10,000 tons of rubble; 900 tons of boulders; and The total weight of rubble and fill used equalled 40 percent of the weight of all Bermuda's cars.

The slope will be landscaped, the trees protected and the drainage system used is also a new environmental approach with the pipes now running into a filtering area before the water reaches the Marsh.

"The easiest thing would have been to run it into the Marsh, but the environmental feeling was that it should be trapped and filtered. We challenged the engineers and it has worked very well,'' said the Minister.

"The work took a little longer than expected, but the weather did not help and it took longer than anticipated to work around the pipes and cables.'' NEW WORKS -- From left, Parks director Bill Cook, Parks director designate Candy Foggo, highways superintendent Wendell Eve, Works Minister Leonard Gibbons and chief engineer Russell Wade study the work on Palmetto Road.