BUCKFIELD – Excavation of a 6.5-mile stretch of Route 117 between Buckfield and Turner was temporarily halted Wednesday when workers discovered a possible problem under the road.

“The underlying material may not be suitable,” said K&K Construction project manager Michael Susi in a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon from the job site where road crews had started to peel back a stretch of Route 117. The Turner-based construction company was awarded the contract last year for the nearly $5.9 million state Department of Transportation project.

According to Susi, the material under the roadway may be clay, not the standard material used in modern construction of roads. The discovery, made by road crews after stripping about 800-feet of pavement Wednesday, may require additional excavating and gravel to rectify.

Heath Cowan, DOT project manager, said the state will gather samples of the material this week to identify it. “Given the fact we’ve had six to seven inches of rain made the materials unstable,” he said.

“This road was kind of formalized a long time ago. It was not a built road,” said Susi of the term used for roads constructed prior to state standards that require the use of certain materials.

The project, set to be completed by June of next year, calls for improving a 6.5-mile stretch of road in Buckfield and Turner. The work includes eliminating or reducing bumps and dips to ease some of the curves in the roadway, building a new roadbed in other parts of the highway and drainage and safety improvements.

Road crews will turn their attention from excavation to piping for the next several days while a solution to the road material is determined. Lane closures will continue as needed.

Buckfield Town Manager Glen Holmes said he was not concerned with the delay. “I’m sure they’ll take care of it and make it right,” he said.

Holmes said traffic on the main thoroughfare from Buckfield to the Auburn-Lewiston area has continued to move along despite the construction. Holmes said he has only been held up a minute or so because of roadwork delays.

The town manager said he does not anticipate any delay in the project schedule.

“The road’s falling apart. It’s just really an impossible road,” he said of the reconstruction that begins at the intersection of routes 117 and 140 in Buckfield and extends to the intersection of Route 4 in Turner.