News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
SR-21 bridge girders head north
Some onlookers last Sunday doubted it could make the corner heading onto the Columbia River Bridge in Coulee Dam, but the TT Trucking driver pulling the 114-foot girder, for a replacement bridge on SR-21 between Keller and Republic, made it across. - Scott Hunter photo
Bridge girders heading toward the West Fork area of the San Poil river along highway 21 between Keller and Republic crossed the bridge at Coulee Dam recently.
The girders, six in total, each measure 114 feet long.
The former bridge at West Fork washed away in the spring of 2017, at which point a single-lane "Bailey Bridge," a type of bridge constructed for World War II, was put there to allow traffic to drive through.
This week the girders will be put up for the new, two-lane bridge, according to Mark Allen, the project engineer for the Washington State Department of Transportation
The new bridge will be a little over 90 feet wide, Allen explained, twice as wide as the 45-foot old bridge, and will allow debris during flooding seasons to pass beneath easier.
N.A. Degerstrom Inc. placed the lowest bid for the project at about $5.7 million to replace the bridge and do channel work.
Next year there will be plantings to revegetate the area, Allen explained.
The project is anticipated to be finished sometime from mid to late summer of 2020.
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