Complaints Can’T End Bridge Work Local Protest Stopped Construction For A Week, But Route Over North Fork Needs To Be Replaced

Work to replace a bridge over the North Fork of the Clearwater River will resume Wednesday, after being halted for a week by public complaints.

The bridge at Ahsahka is just downstream from Dworshak Dam. It carries about 1,100 vehicles a day, including rural residents headed into Orofino or recreationists bound for fishing, camping and boating in the Clearwater River country.

The Idaho Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting about the project from 7 to 9 tonight at the nearby Clearwater Fish Hatchery.

Transportation director Dwight Bower ordered bridge work to be stopped after area residents started a phone campaign to the governor’s office. They complained about both the detour they would be forced to take and the choice of contractor.

The detour will take drivers nearly five miles out of their way, over the top of Dworshak Dam.

“It takes 15 minutes to drive that,” said resident Carla Laws, who works in Orofino and makes the commute daily. “It’s very steep and winding. In the winter it will receive no sun; I think ‘dicey’ would be a good word to describe it.”

Laws said her main concern is the performance of a contractor who did what she considers a mediocre job on recent road repairs between Orofino and Ahsahka. She said the project went on for three years.

Not so, according to Jim Carpenter, the Transportation Department’s district engineer in Lewiston. The contractor in question did the work satisfactorily; the road was built in 13 months.

The road over the dam normally is closed in the winter by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This year, the state Transportation Department will keep it plowed, Carpenter said.

There’s no debate about whether the 60-year-old bridge needs repairing. It is too low, too narrow, and its steel has weathered. Engineers give it a “sufficiency rating” of about 20 on a scale of 100, Carpenter said. Bridges rating below 50 are considered due for replacement.

It’s “imperative” that the $2.8 million project resume quickly, Carpenter said.

That’s because the in-water work that is necessary must be completed by Sept. 1 in order not to disturb migrations of endangered fish. If the work isn’t completed by then, it will be next July 1 before it can be started.