MILANVILLE, PA & SKINNERS FALLS, NY — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation now plans to permanently destroy the standing Skinners Falls Bridge, reversing its prior stated intention …
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MILANVILLE, PA & SKINNERS FALLS, NY — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation now plans to permanently destroy the standing Skinners Falls Bridge, reversing its prior stated intention of dismantling the bridge and storing its pieces for later use. This decision comes on the heels of an October inspection report which recommended repairs to the bridge and did not mention demolition as a possibility.
The project team announced the reversal and new option for the first time at a virtual public meeting on Tuesday, December 17.
The project team says several disassembly options were evaluated, which would have involved lowering the spans of the bridge to the ground with a large crane and dismantling it there. However, the project team had safety concerns and determined that the bridge could not be picked up and moved without putting workers and the public in danger.
"This is a serious concern that the deteriorated structure would not survive the pick and move by a crane…With the condition of the bridge, if the trusses would collapse during the pick or the lift, or during movement, it would result in a catastrophic crane collapse," said Lisa Brozey, vice president of consulting firm AECOM.
In addition, Brozey said, "PennDOT determined that the time needed to design and implement a safe method of lift-pick disassemble is not reasonable, given the bridge's rapidly deteriorating condition. Considering the site constraints, the seasonal concerns [for] the landowner [and] business impacts, and the need to provide safe passage for river users, a demolition alternative was considered."
"The demolition with the partial width causeway alternative was then included as a selected alternatives in... all regulatory permit applications," Brozey said.
The team hopes to have the demolition process done in late winter or early spring.
In explaining the need for the demolition, the project team referred to an inspection report from October, during which it was determined the bridge's substructure was reduced from "2—critical" to "0—failed."
However, the report from that inspection contains no reference to the possibility of the bridge being destroyed. Instead, it identifies $261,290 worth of "Priority 1" repairs that should be conducted on the bridge within the following six months.
The River Reporter acquired the report through a PA Right to Know Law request; see full report attached.
The inspection report includes a total of $2,881,165 in maintenance recommendations. However, only $261,290 of those recommendations are marked as the highest level of priority, "Priority 1," with a timeline of "as soon as work can be scheduled (within six months)."
Demolition Details
The project team considered two options for demolition—one with a causeway the full width of the river, one with a partial causeway—and preferred the partial causeway alternative.
The causeway would stretch from the New York side to approximately 25 feet beyond the center pier, according to Brozey. The New York side of the bridge would be dropped onto the causeway, and the Pennsylvania side of the bridge would be dropped into the river and pulled up onto the causeway.
"Explosive charges are one of the means anticipated to be used to drop the bridges onto the causeway," said Brozey.
The New York abutment and central pier would be removed, and the Pennsylvania abutment would be stabilized, she said.
What's failing
The inspection identified several aspects of the bridge as having deteriorated since the previous inspection in May.
The bridge's substructure (the foundation of the bridge) has been reduced from "2—critical" to "0—failed." Inspectors identified "severe shifting in the stone masonry abutments," the stone pillars that support the New York and Pennsylvania sides of the bridge.
Pictures included with the inspection report show loose stones and missing mortar on both abutments, with the damage being more pronounced on the New York side, which is referred to as the "far abutment."
Because the substructure was determined to be "failed," that caused the overall rating of the bridge to drop to "failed" as well.
"One of our main concerns is the abutment on the New York side of the river," said Rich Roman, executive with PennDOT District 4, at the December 17 meeting. "That abutment is actually starting to shift and rotate in a matter that we cannot control, and we cannot predict what it's going to do and how it's going to function."
The inspection team also reduced the rating of the bridge's superstructure (the bridge structure itself) dropping it from "4—poor" to "2—critical." This reduction came as a result of continued deterioration and corrosion of the superstructure's parts.
The parts identified include metal bracing beams on the underside of the bridge, like the one that dangled beneath the bridge this past fall and prompted emergency inspections of the structure.
Declaration of emergency
While PennDOT still has a significant amount of administrative work to do to get the Skinners Falls Bridge project underway, it took a step forward toward that goal on Monday, December 16, as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro issued a declaration of emergency for the project.
According to the text of the letter, provided to the River Reporter by local resident Cynthia Nash, he declared an emergency to exist in Wayne County because of the deterioration of the bridge, and stated that "the immediate removal of the structure, while attempting to minimize impacts to the environmental resources, is vital to the security, well-being and health of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Editor's note: The picture which ran with this story was originally captioned incorrectly; this has been corrected as of 9 a.m. on December 18.
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