Attachments

20250217-134600-fb9-Draft SUP Submission Skinners Falls Bridge 12.17.2024.pdf

20250217-134549-f5a-Final Special Use Permit Application.pdf

Update: On February 7, the National Park Service issued a final Special Use Permit for the destruction of the Skinners Falls Bridge. Click here for more on that permit, including  a digital copy of the permit. 

SKINNERS FALLS, NY and MILANVILLE, PA — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) proposed on December 17, 2024 to demolish the Skinners Falls Bridge. Weeks of discussion since then have brought the department and community advocates no closer to consensus on whether that demolition is necessary. 

PennDOT says its analysis of the bridge’s current condition shows it could collapse at any time, and it must be taken down as soon as possible for reasons of public safety. The bridge’s supporters have rallied experts of their own to claim the bridge can still be saved and restored, using historic bridge-rehabilitation techniques. 

All the while, time ticks on, bringing the bridge ever closer to the May deadline PennDOT has set for its destruction. 

Demolition details

Before PennDOT can move ahead with the demolition of the bridge, it needed to receive a Special Use Permit from the National Park Service (NPS). 

PennDOT submitted a draft Special Use Permit request on December 17, the same day as the public meeting at which it announced the planned demolition. That initial submission included an aggressive timetable for the project’s completion. 

In its initial submission, PennDOT proposed to start building out the causeway underneath the bridge on December 28, 2024; to detonate the bridge during a five-day window from January 19 to 24; and to finish the entire project by March 17. 

As of mid February, the bridge still stands. If the 80 days set aside for construction were to begin this coming weekend, February 22, it would not be complete until May 11. 

PennDOT has maintained the necessity of completing the project by Memorial Day, May 26, so as to have the bridge taken down before the start of tourist season. 

To that end, PennDOT has pressed for an expedited review of the project. However, NPS Superintendent Lindsey Kurnath told the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) in January the NPS’ priority was to do a thorough review. 

“The pressure from the Department of the Interior [the parent agency to the NPS] is, ‘You’ve got a few weeks. Do the analyses, do all the reviews that really show we’ve done our due diligence,’” said Kurnath. 

After the NPS and PennDOT corresponded about additional information required for the application, a final, revised application was submitted on January 22. In response to PennDOT’s final permit application the NPS sent PennDOT a draft permit on January 27 for their review before issuing them the final permit.

The NPS issued its final special use permit for the bridge on February 7, 2025.  Click here for more information on that permit. 

Preservation plans

While PennDOT presses ahead to secure permits to demolish the bridge, its advocates have continued to press forward with attempts to save it. 

The case they’re making for preservation has come to center around a proposal from the company Wrought Iron Bridge Works (WIBW). 

WIBW, together with local advocacy group Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS), presented PennDOT with a proposal to rehabilitate the bridge using historic techniques. WIBW’s plan would involve building “falsework,” temporary supports from the ground under the bridge up to the bridge’s support beams, supporting it from underneath. This bridge would keep the bridge standing while PennDOT restores the failing foundations of the New York side of the bridge. 

The historic bridge experts with WIBW say their expertise allows them to see possibilities that PennDOT could not. PennDOT’s good at building shiny, new bridges, they say—but doesn’t know how to maintain historic structures. 

“For the most part, no one in PennDOT and most of the engineering firms and local contractors have an understanding of old truss bridges,” Art Suckewer, WIBW president and CEO, wrote in an email provided to the River Reporter by DCS. “Yes, they may be able to calculate strains of a particular truss design on an academic level, [but] there isn’t anyone in these organizations that has a ‘feel’ of these bridges.”

WIBW provided PennDOT with a proposal dated January 25, discussing the work it would do to rehabilitate the bridge. PennDOT responded with a letter dated February 3, expressing skepticism on WIBW’s rehabilitation proposal.. 

“The Skinners Falls Bridge and the Delaware River are considerably larger than the bridges and streams involved in the projects you offer as examples… PennDOT has determined that your proposal cannot be implemented for a bridge of this size within the time available,” wrote Susan Hazelton, assistant district executive of design with PennDOT District 4. 

DCS and WIBW have begun a response to PennDOT’s comments. They maintain that WIBW’s proposal is possible, and question the data PennDOT is using to declare an emergency situation. 

But other agencies that have gone in to check PennDOT’s math have come away agreeing that, however unfortunate it may be, the math adds up.

“A series of inspections were done, and they ultimately determined that the bridge had failed and is beyond repair and beyond rehabilitation,” said Kerry Engelhart, resources and land use specialist with the Upper Delaware Council (UDC), addressing the council at a February 6 meeting. “In working with the park service, we looked at it as if [we] are trusting the engineering reports produced by PennDOT. We’ve also seen reports, inspection reports from outside engineering firms that was not PennDOT and not AECOM (who is in charge of the demolition and removal).”

“We’re viewing the failure of the bridge as [having] already happened,” Engelhart added.

That view isn’t shared by the bridge’s advocates. 

“To what purpose are you having the bridge blown up?” DCS Director Barbara Arrindell asked the UDC at the end of its February 6 meeting. 

Members of the UDC responded—vehemently—that they weren’t. “We didn’t agree to it,” said UDC Chair Jim Rodgers. “It was never our decision.”

“It is your decision,” Arrindell countered. “You are deciding whether it goes along with the River Management Plan... you could ask for a pause.”

Editor's note: The article initally included the information that the NPS had not yet issued its final special use permit for the Skinners Falls Bridge.  That information was inaccurate, and has been corrected as of 4 p.m. February 19.